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WORLD-WIDE 

BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THE WORLD’S GREAT EXPOSITION OF CIVILIZATION 

LATEST 

Wonders, Mysteries and Revelations 

IN THE ACHIEVEMENTS OK 


Science, Invention, Discovery and Progress 


* TEN BOOKS * 
% IN ONE J 

************* 


All the Famous and Fascinating 
Subjects and T opics in the 
Problems, Per plexities and 
Powers of Life, Mind and 




* 

X 

X 1 '~ >r 1 v '° *- 

^ & JK W W- && ft W- ^ 


3 0 0 0 

TOPICS 


Nature, According to the Foremost Living Authorities 


WITH 

INSTRUCTION, GUIDANCE AND ASSISTANCE 

IN THE REQUIREMENTS OF 

PROSPERITY AND HAPPINESS, LONG LIFE AND SUCCESS 


World-Wide Knowledge of the Momentous Work of the World 

^ ' ^ ___ 


EDITOR 

PROF. C. M. STEVENS, PH. D. 

'A 7 

Editor of Official Guides for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 
Author of Numerous Series of Educational and Reference Works 

EXTENSIVELY ILLUSTRATED AND THOROUGHLY INDEXED 

PUBLISHERS 

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 

407-429 DEARBORN STREET 
CHICAGO, ILL., U. S. A. 



















P\ Ox ^ 0 5 

.SZ 4 - 


LIBRARY of OONGRtSS 
Two Gopies Received 


JUL 22 1905 


Gopyriuiii tiiiry 

JtL'ru 2 q, 15 OS' 

'GLASS Cl. AAc. No; 


COPY B. ' 


Copyright by 
C. M. STEVENS 

1 9° 5 


M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY 

PRINTERS AND BINDERS 
407-429 DEARBORN STREET 

C H ICAGO 






A WORD WITH THE READER. 


UMAN knowledge and power are progressing so rapidly that there 
is continually in review a new and extensive array of startling 
developments. 

Magazines and newspapers reflect these bewildering multi¬ 
tudes of achievements before the people much like a mirror in 
which one may view outside things while traveling on a fast 
mail train. In this case, there are few persons who have the time 
to use even that chance whereby to obtain a fair general understanding of the 
great public interests of the day and times. They thus miss much that is en¬ 
tertaining, uplifting and useful in world affairs, besides being losers socially in 
not being able to talk understanding^* with associates on the great questions of life 
and the world. 

This volume has been built up for such needs, without regard to cost, in 
order to supply that want among the people in the fullest measure, so that its 
readers will be posted in all the up-to-date knowledge of popular subjects. 

This comprehensive volume is composed of ten books which cover all the 
important public affairs of the day, and are written with the wants of the people 
thus in view, by the greatest living authorities. 

The priceless usefulness of this live information can be seen from the fol¬ 
lowing titles: 



BOOK i. 

Revelations of Science in the Most Ad¬ 
vanced Problems of Life and Nature. 
Greatest discoveries in the fields 
of recent experiment and research 
by the master-minds of the age. 

BOOK 2. 

Triumph of Invention and Enterprise 
in the Promotion of Man’s Domin¬ 
ion over Land and Sea. All the 
most remarkable achievements of 
energy and genius throughout the 
world. 


book 3. 

Great Questions and Interests of Gov¬ 
ernment and Civilization now Per¬ 
plexing the Rulers of the World. 
Statement and explanation of the 
weighty affairs of state that are 
of personal and public interest in 
the Government of Nations. 

book 4. 

Prosperity, Happiness and Character 
with the Theories and Conclusions 
of the Greatest Living Authorities 
on the Achievement of Success in 

























2 


A WORD WITH THE READER. 


Life. Specific instruction in the 
precepts, formulas and principles 
required in the modem conditions 
of Society. 

book 5. 

Newest Discoveries in the Secrets of 
Health and Long Life with the 
Scientific Formulas and Principles 
for Physical and Mental Strength. 
Scientific explanation and direc¬ 
tions in prevention and cure of 
disease with the special methods 
of continued health and life from 
the greatest living authorities. 

book 6 . 

Problems, Mysteries and Powers of 
Life, Mind and Soul with all the 
Startling Discoveries and Develop¬ 
ments of Recent Research in the 
Sources and Means of Human 
Wisdom and Power. All the won¬ 
derful achievements in the startling 
phenomena of mental science, illus¬ 
trating the truths from which have 
arisen the many beliefs and cults 
of society. 

book 7. 

Remarkable Appearances and Evolu¬ 
tions in Nature with their Rela¬ 
tion and Significance toward the 


Utilities of Human Life. A view 
of man’s mastery over his sur¬ 
roundings, showing the many 
strange departures from common 
types. 

book 8 . 

Extraordinary Affairs and Conditions 
Among Mankind with their in¬ 
fluence and Results upon the Pres¬ 
ent Progress of Civilization. A 
Survey of the anomalous and ab¬ 
normal experiences of mankind, 
with reference to their bearing upon 
the conduct of life. 

book 9. 

Strangest of Strange Events and Facts 
with various Astounding Happen¬ 
ings from all parts of the World, 
Illustrating the Oddities and Pecu¬ 
liarities of Human Society. A 
mirror of astounding events from 
all quarters of the globe, in their 
significance and relation to human 
affairs. 

book 10. 

Recent Creeds, Doctrines, Formulas 
and Fads of Thought. A General 
Review and Special Explanation 
of Beliefs professed by lately formed 
Sects, Cults and Societies now 
claiming our attention. 


This gives the reader a world-wide education in the triumphs and achieve¬ 
ments of the age in a compact and comprehensive volume filled with startling 
discoveries in the riddles of existence and momentous revelations in the problems 
of philosophy. 

The reader therefore has in this book an educational exposition of the mar¬ 
velous truths in the world-wide arts of life, making it not only needful but nec¬ 
essary to all who desire to be up-to-date in the grand wisdom of human progress. 


THE PUBLISHERS. 





TABLE of CONTENTS 


BOOK I 

Revelations of Science. 


Page. 


Frontispiece —Submarine Torpedo Vessel. 
Stupendous and Rapid Progress of 

Knowledge. 17 

Advancement in Transportation . 17 

Amazing Feats of Construction. 17 

Mysteries of Radiating Energy. 18 

Startling Science of Mind. 18 

Illustration —Volcanic Stump. 19 

The Religion of Science. 20 

The Religious Instinct. 20 

A Bad or Indifferent World. 20 

Science not the Enemy but the Ally 

of Religion. 21 

What is Religion. 21 

Accountability of the Soul. 21 

Man and the Universe. 22 

From Littleness to Nothing. 22 

Inconceivable Smallness of the Earth . 23 

Nothingness of the Earth. 23 

The Size of an Atom. 23 

The Smallness of the Visible Universe. . 24 

How Stars are Made . 24 

Illustration —Gods and Devils of Mankind . . 25 

Sodium in the Sun. 26 

Ages Change Spectrums. 26 

N ebula of Orion.. .. 26 

Spectroscope Decides Questions. 27 

Reveals Many Secrets. 27 

Gradual Cooling Begins. 28 

Measures Heat of Star. 28 

Science and the Common Man. 29 

Human Achievement. 29 

Significance of Invention. 29 

The Common Man. 29 

Rule of the Few. 30 

Elevation of the Common Man. 30 

The Great Problem of Society. 30 

Two Views of Man. 30 

Woman as the Superior of Man. 31 

Woman’s Superior Qualities. 31 

How Old is the Earth. 32 

A Relic of 5000 B. C. 32 

When the Sun Dies. 32 

Illustration —Oldest Church in the United 

States. 33 

96,000,000 Years of Life. 34 

Startling Figures. 34 

Earth Once Red Hot. 35 

Prophesies of Science Concerning 

the Earth and Sun. 35 

End of the World Prophesies. 36 

Is the Sun Inhabited?. 37 

Discovery of the Most Ancient Ruins . 38 

Illustration —Site of Most Ancient City. ... 38 

Illustration —Conference of Japanese Priests 

and Teachers. 39 

Bricks Probably Mark World’s Oldest 

City. 4 ° 

Hampered by Government and Arabs. . 40 

Babylonia, the Center of Civilization. . 41 

Architectural Knowledge of High Or¬ 
der . 4 1 

Discovery Adds Whole Chapters to His¬ 
tory . 42 

Oldest Statue in the World. 43 


Page. 


Temple Eshar, King Daddu. 43 

The Age of Mankind. 44 

Older than the Records. 44 

Theories of Origin of Life on Earth .... 44 

Illustration —High-speed Auto Car. 45 

The Triumph of the Cell. 46 

Measuring the Earth. 47 

Necessary Delicate Scientific Operations. 47 
Illustration —Two Ton Automobile Van. ... 47 

A Hole in the Earth. 48 

To Test Force of Gravity. 48 

Sir William Thompson’s Theory. 48 

Heat Would Render Tools Useless. ... 49 

Illustration —Diagram of Borings. 49 

Depth of Great Mines. 49 

Distance of One of the Fixed Stars. . 50 

Is Man the Center of the Universe?. 50 
Illustration —Heavy Automobile Trucks. ... 51 

Java May Have the Missing Link.... 52 

Species of Man Monkeys. 52 

Observe Animals for Months. 52 

Monkey Mothers Sing to Young. 52 

The Unsolved Mystery of Energy. ... 52 

Luminiferous Ether. 54 

Illustration —the Unicycle. 55 

Are Metals Alive ?. 36 

Muscle and Metal. 56 

Fired Platinum. 56 

lllustratio, -Automobile Diagrams. 57 

Wire Which Writes. 58 

Ionics for Tin. 58 

Do They Think?. 59 

Diseases of Metals. 59 

Illustration —Crystals in Copper Wire. 59 

Illustration —Copper and Steel Diseases.... 60 

Metals Diseased from Abuse . 60 

Mysteries of Lowest Known Forms of 

Life. 61 

Nerve Life in Plants. 62 

Explanation of Sensitiveness. 62 

Illustration —Oldfield’s Automobile Racer . 63 

The Beginning of Nerves. 64 

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. 64 

Evolution an Accepted Fact. 65 

Simultaneous Discoveries. 65 

Evolution of Life. 66 

The Eye. 67 

Wonders of the Third Eye. 68 

The Hands and Feet. 68 

Strange Facts About Insects. 69 

How a Fly Walks on the Ceiling. 70 

Compound Noses. 70 

Illustration —Making Iron from Sand. 71 

Sense of Smell in Ants. 72 

A Scientist Who Shows Living Ani¬ 
malcule That He has Created. . 73 

His Theories of Life and Its Origin. ... 73 

The Professor’s Theory. 73 

Illustration —Dried Tears. 73 

Gradual Evolution. 74 

The Science of Atheists. 75 

Life in Crystals. 76 

Problem of Restoring the Dead to 

Life. 76 

Heart Muscle Forms a Third Class. ... 76 






































































































4 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


Page. 


Restores Beats of Human Hearts. ... 77 

Illustration —Compressed Air Mail Tubes. . . 77 

Starting Brain More Difficult. 78 

Awakens Brain of Dead Rabbit. 78 

Scientific Experiments in Bringing 

the Dead to Life. 78 

Illustration —Machinery for Condensing Milk 79 
Stopping and Starting the Heart. . 80 

Death May Be Deferred. 80 

Illustration —Dog in Underground Mail Tube 81 
Illustration —How Obstructions Are Located 82 

Salt as an Elixir of Life. 82 

The Most Amazing if not the Great¬ 
est Scientific Discovery Ever 

Made. 83 

Extensive Deposits of Radium. 83 

Origin of Radium. 84 

Radium on Other Planets. 85 

Radium in the Sun. 85 

Amount and Power of Radium. . 86 

Latest Theories of Radium. 86 

Illustration —The Lamas of Thibet. 87 

The Discovery of Polonium. 88 

Stranger than Radium. 88 

Theory that Matter is a Form of 

Electricity. 89 

Scientific Explanation of Electros. ... 89 

Cause of Electric Currents. 90 

Illustration —The Lama’s Palace. 90 

Cause of Radiation. 91 

Electric Anesthetics. 91 

Tries It on the Dog. 91 

Submits to Test on Himself. 92 

The Dynelectron. 92 

The Astronomy of Atoms Revealed 

by Radium .. 93 

Matter Transformed Into Electricity. . 93 

Substance of Electricity. 94 

Matter Subdivided Until Only Energy . 94 

Illustration —Hope of the Dying Soldier. ... 95 

Scientists Mystified. 96 

Ancient ' Belief in Transmutations of 

Metals. 96 

On the Borderland. 96 


Pack. 


Illustration —Man of the Stone Age. 97 

Suggested by Yttrium. 97 

Nature’s Plan Reversed. 98 

Solidified Air. 98 

Incalculable Power. 98 

Enormous Freezing Power. 99 

Scientific Experiments. 100 

The Use of Solidified Air. 101 

Illustration —Wire Cable from Pompeii.. 101 
Fathomless Wonders of Electricity. . 102 

Low Currents Deadly. 102 

Currents Disorganize Nerves. 102 

Unfinished East River Bridge. 103 

Latest Wonders of Wireless Electric 

Currents. 104 

Destroying Wireless Dispatches. 104 

The Aurora .. 106 

Illustration —Sun Image from Denmark. ... 106 

Causes of Aurora. 107 

Nitrogen. 107 

The Element Upon Which the Scheme 

of Life Depends. 107 

Uses of the Element. 108 

How It Converts Other Elements. 108 

Nitrogen as a Compound. 109 

Illustration —The Lama’s Grave . 109 

Nitrogen Groups. no 

As an Explosive. no 

Effects on Precious Metals. in 

The Later Elements. in 

Flying Bullets and Visible Air Waves 112 

Who Were the Mound Builders?. 112 

Illustration —Ten Figures of Flying Bullets. 113 

Mystery of Common Things. 114 

Wonders of Common Salt. 114 

Wonders of Carbon. 115 

How to Test a Diamond. 115 

Meteoric Origin of Diamonds. 115 

Psychological Discoveries in Vegeta¬ 
bles. 116 

Plants Think. .. 116 

The Cause of Rain. 116 

Source of Rain Supply. 116 

Illustration —Largest Meteor Ever Found . 117 


BOOK II 

Triumphs of Invention and Enterprise. 


F ontispiece —Finger Mark System for Crim¬ 
inals. 

Greatness of Greater New York City. 121 

Carrying Capacity of the Bridges. 121 

Subway Tunnel. 122 

Greatest World Tunnels . 123 

The Panama Canal. 123 

Illustration —United States Treasurer Sign¬ 
ing $40,000,000 Check. 124 

Under the Sea. 124 

Terrors of Warfare Under the Ocean. . 124 

Battleship Out of Date. 125 

Illustration —First Submarine Boat. 125 

Ungrounded Fears. 126 

Difficult Riding. 126 

Illustration —Japanese Torpedo Boat. 127 

Dangers to the Crew. 128 

Frailty of the Vessel. 128 

Perils of the Submarine. 129 

A Fearful Prison. 129 

Illustration —Disaster to a Submarine. 130 

Earliest Attempt at Submarines. 130 

How it Feels to be in a Submarine. ... 131 


The Periscope for Submarines. 131 

Submarine Torpedoes in War. 132 

The Controlling Machinery. 132 

Illustration —Mechanism of Submarine Mine. 133 

Ingenious Devices. 134 

Wireless Telegraphy. 134 

Its Utility Demonstrated. 134 

Over Earth and Sea. 135 

Problem of Aerial Navigation. 135 

Flying Machines. 135 

Varied Attempts at Flying. 136 

Illustration —French Submarine Boat. 136 

Peculiar Theories. 137 

Efforts of Noted Inventors. 138 

Novel Machines that Fail to Fly. 138 

Illustration —Laying Electric Mines in Jap¬ 
anese War. 139 

Confidence of an Inventor. 140 

An Inventor Criticising Nature. 140 

War in the Air. 140 

Prophecy of a “Flying Fleet”. 140 

Spying by Kites. 141 

When the Flying Machine Comes. 141 













































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


5 


Page. 


Forts in the Clouds. 142 

Illustration —French Submarine Boat. 142 

Wanted! A Definition. 143 

Speed on the Sea. 143 

Turbine and Electric Motors. 143 

Speed Like an Express Train. 143 

Limit of Steam Power. 144 

New Turbine Engines. 145 

Illustration —Submarine Mines at Harbor 

Entrance. 146 

Record of Speed. 146 

Evolution of Locomotives. 147 

Illustration —Types of Early Locomotives. . 147 
Fastest Railway Time Ever Made. . . . 148 

Illustration —Unique Elevator Bridge. 149 

Speed of Railroad Trains. 150 

Extent of Railroads in the United States 150 

Stabling the Iron Horse. 150 

Care of Locomotives. 150 

Put in the Round House. 151 

Engineer’s Work Done. 151 

Tightening Drive-Wheel Tires. 151 

Great Guns. 152 

Coast Defenses of the Government. ... 152 

Range Finders for Great Guns. 153 

Illustration —Japanese Defense and Siege 

Gun . 153 

Accuracy of Great Guns. 154 

Greatest Battleships. 155 

British Cruisers. 155 

Greatest W arships A float. 155 

The Louisiana. 155 

Most Powerful War Vessel. 155 

Marvels of the Great Steamships. 156 

Illustration —Disappearing Siege Gun. 157 

Life-Saving Service of the United 

States. 158 

A Notable Crew. 159 

Perilous Service. 159 

Illustration —Life-saving Station on the 

Great Lakes. 160 

When a Ship is Going to Pieces. 161 

Special Feats of Invention and En¬ 
terprise. 161 

The Pyrheliophoro. 161 

Exploring the Bottom of the Sea. 161 

Fulton’s Sylphon Motor. 162 

Illustration —The Hydroscope. 163 

Film of Steel Corrugated. 164 

Used to Ferment Yeast. 164 

Greatest Telescopes in the World. 165 

Greatest Microscopes in the World. . . . 165 
Wonders of the Infinitesimal World... . 165 
Greatest Elevator Lift in the World. 166 
Illustration —Wonders of Bridge Construe- 167 

tion. 167 

Great Obstacle. 167 

Loss of Time Slight. 168 


Page. 


What Invention is Like. 168 

How Vessel is Raised. 169 

Clock to Run 30,000 Years. 169 

Wireless Telephone. 170 

Type-setting Machines. 171 

Illustrations —Linotypes and Monotypes... 171 

Linotype and Monotype Machines. 171 

Killing Whales. 172 

How Whales are Handled. 172 

Natural History. 172 

Colossal Engines. 173 

Bewildering Dimensions. 173 

The Magical Buttons. 173 

For Boring Steel. 174 

Machine for Magnifying Time. 174 

How Shoes are Made. 175 

Illustration —The Baldwin Air-ship. 175 

The Process of Making Shoes. 176 

Ingenuity of the Machines. 176 

Deserts Blossoming as the Rose. 177 

Government Engineers in the Southwest 177 

Projects Under Way. 178 

Intricate Engineering Problem. 178 

Illustration —Process of Constructing Chicago 

First National Bank. 179 

Tonto Basin Dam. 180 

Government Schemes. 180 

To Populate Deserts. 181 

Salvation Army’s Vast Project. 181 

Success so far Achieved. 181 

Illustration —Mechanism of Barton Air-ship. 182 

Great Value of Irrigation. 182 

Inexhaustible Fuel. 183 

Keeping Warm. 183 

Primitive Fire-making. 183 

Illustration —English Air-ship. 184 

Antiquated Methods. 185 

Peat in Vast Quantities. 186 

Friction as a Heat-producer. 186 

Illustration —Largest Fresh-water Ship in 

the World . 187 

Cocoons as a Household Industry. .. . 188 

Government Encouragement. 188 

Interest in Silkworms. 189 

Illustration —The Maudie Air-ship. 189 

The First Ship. 19a 

Government Circular. 190 

Frog Raising. 191 

Progress of Alaska. 192 

Rising Value in Real Estate. 192 

Illustration —Balloon Ready for a Start. . . . 193 

How Air Brakes AVork. 193 

Baby Incubators. 194 

Nursery in White Enamel. 194 

Bows Distinguish Sex. 194 

Infants Fed Often. 195 

Electricity on the Farm. 195 

Important Place in Agriculture. 195 


BOOK III 

Great Questions and Interests of Government. 


Frontispiece~ Hope Amidst the Desolation 
of War. 

Great Questions and Interests of 


Government . 199 

War. 199 

Its Irreconcilable Contradictions. 199 

The Golden Rule of Power. 199 

Wireless Telegraphy in War. 200 


Peace Convention of the Hague. 200 

Evolution of Might and Right. 200 

International Congress of Peace. 202 

Illustration —Giant Dredge. 202 

The Hague Tribunal in the North 
Sea—Trouble Between England 

and Russia. 203 

National Honor. 204 

















































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


G 


Page. 


Some Decisions. . . .. 205 

America’s Call for Peace Tribunal.... 205 

Peace Beginnings. 206 

Peace Conference Resolution. 206 

Illustration —Automatic Ore Loader. 208 

Contraband of War. 209 

Text of the Hay Note. 209 

What is Real Contraband. 210 

When Food is Contraband. 210 

British Position Outlined. 210 

Russian View Changed. 211 

Raw Cotton not Contraband. 211 

Cannot Recognize Principle. 211 

Cost of Military Preparedness. 211 

Loss of Life Through War. 212 

Loss of Life by Ancient and Modern 

Weapons. 212 

Illustration —View of Typical City Prison. .. 213 
Cause of Japan’s Wars with China and 

Russia. 214 

Russian Aggression . 214 

Japan Robbed of Rights. 214 

Japanese Demands. 215 

Russian Policy of Delay. 216 

National Expansion and Prophecy. . . 216 

Growth in America. 217 

Germany’s Coast Line. 217 

Government Civil Service. 217 

Officers. 218 

General Rules. 218 

Examinations. 218 

Illustration —English Royal Military Tour¬ 
nament . 219 

Qualification of Applicants. 219 

Method of Appointment. 220 

Removals. 220 

Salaries. 220 

Military Education . 220 

Remuneration. 221 

Naval Education. 222 

Method of Nomination. 222 

Contract on Pay. 223 

Manufacturing Paper Money and 

Stamps.• 22 3 

Time Required in Printing. 223 

Method of Printing. 224 

Use of Machines.225 

How the Government Coins Money. .. 225 
Illustration —Machine for Counting and 

Wrapping Coin. 226 

The Coming Machine. 227 

Story of the Mint. 227 

Signals of the Sea. 228 

Continuous Lights. 229 

The Submarine Bell. 229 

Government Education of the Indian. 230 

Value of Education. 230 

Improvement in the Schools. 231 

Most Advanced Indians. 231 

Negro Population of the United 

States. 232 

Illustration —If the Crucifixion of Christ 

Were to Take Place Now. 233 

Statistics of Negroes and Their Occupa¬ 
tions. 234 

The Race Problem. 235 

Way to Save the Negro. 235 

Reply from Southern College President. 236 
Mobs and Lynchers. 236 


Page. 


Charged with Various Crimes. 237 

Public Opinion Responsible. 237 

The Terrible Result. 237 

Novel Temperance Movement. 238 

Another Experiment. 238 

Illustration —Chinese Punishments. 239 

Former Temperance Movements. 240 

Claim Certain Features of the Saloon 

not Evil. 240 

Some Criticisms of the Bishop’s Plan. . 241 

The Malthusian Theory. 242 

The World’s Dread is Hunger. 243 

German Old Age Insurance. 243 

Illustration —Consequences of the Pursuit 

of Pleasure. 245 

How France Aids Workingmen. 245 

Great Combinations of Capital. 245 

The Foremost Problem in Political 

Economy. 245 

Labor Unions—Strikes and Their 

Results . 247 

What is the Right to Labor?. 248 

Function of the Scab. 248 

An Analogy. 248 

Common Law on Strikes and Combina¬ 
tions. 249 

Illustration —Portrait of the Dowager Em¬ 
press of China En Route to St. Louis. 249 
How Financiers Make Money Out of 

Nothing. 250 

Robbing the Public as a Commercial 

Privilege. 250 

The Power of Dollars. 250 

Making Cash Out of Nothing. 251 

An Illustrative Instance. 251 

Secret Financial Trick. 251 

Enormous Income of the Standard Oil 

Company. 252 

Story of the Rothchilds. 253 

Loans by the Rothchilds. 253 

Becoming Financiers. 253 

Request of Rothchild’s Son. 253 

Start a Banking House. 254 

Assist One Another. 254 

Some Rothchilds Marry Nobility. 254 

Illustration —Royal Mausoleum of Queen 

Victoria. 255 

Traits of the Rothchilds Family. 256 

Fear the Socialists. 256 

An Indictment of Civilization. 256 

No Escape from Social Guilt. 256 

Christian Business Life Impossible .... 257 

Dilemma for the Conscience. 257 

No Private Property in Righteousness. 257 

True Plan of Social Salvation. 257 

Grinders of the Poor According to Hon. 

Thomas Watson. 258 

Principles of the Socialists. 259 

Illustration —Scene of the Assassination of 

Russian Minister. 260 

Principles of Political Christian Party. . 261 
Special Notable Facts of the Times. . 262 

Pensions. 262 

Cost of a National Campaign. 262 

Flag of the United States. 263 

The Monroe Doctrine. 263 

Millions Paid for New Territory. 264 

Divorce and Polygamy. 264 

Alien Paupers and Criminals. 264 

















































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


7 


BOOK IV 

Prosperity, Happiness, Character and Success. 


Page. 


Frontispiece —Talisman for a Japanese Sol¬ 
dier. 

Character, Happiness and Success. .. . 267 
Basis Upon Which to Build the Values 

of Life. 267 

Corruption of Politics. 267 

Social Culture. 267 

What is Success?. 268 

How to Succeed. 268 

English Ideas of American Methods. . . 268 

Money for Ideas. 268 

No Red Tape. 269 

Be Thorough. 269 

Art in Trading. 270 

Frankness of Manner. 270 

Prosperity’s “P’s.”. 271 

How to Make a Fortune. 271 

Five Foundation Rules. 272 

Three Other Essentials. 272 

Best Education for a Fortune Teller. . 272 

Value of Honesty. 272 

Illustration —Egyptian Trial of the Dead . . 273 

The Talent for Success. 274 

Inspiration and Aspiration. 274 

Will and Brains. 274 

Effort and Genius. 274 

No One Knows His Powers Till the 

day of Trial. 274 

Purpose in Life the Profound Need of 

Success. 275 

Necessity for Industry. 275 

Special Precepts for the Powers of 

Success. 275 

Misleading Ideals. 275 

Power of Mind. 276 

Courage, Nerve and Confidence. 276 

Illustration —Bomb in a Piece of Coal. 277 

Power of Self-control. 278 

Wonderful Contest of the Hindoos. . . . 278 
Proper Exercise Will Give Control. . . . 278 
Illustration —Basket-maker of West Indies. 279 
Dead Still Exercises Give Concentra¬ 
tion. 280 

Practice is Great Aid to the Nerves ... 280 

The Attainment of Self-control. 281 

How to Command Success. 281 

One Significent and Important Fact. . 282 


Page. 


Another Important Fact. 282 

Value of Self-government. 283 

Injury of Worry. 283 

Aggression and Success. 284 

Failure Thinks Others Merely Lucky. . 284 

Thoughts of Failure Paralyze. 285 

Grit the Price of Success. 285 

Push or Stand Still. 286 

The Greatest Fortune Tellers. 286 

Illustration —Scene in African Jungles. 287 

The Chinese and Confucius. 289 

Great Secular Teacher. 289 

His Three Words. 289 

How they Work Out in Practice. 290 

Corner-stone of Confucianism. 290 

Powers of Rest and Peace. 290 

Age and Mental Powers. 291 

Old Men of Great Power. 291 

Artists of Advanced Age. 291 

The Child and Play. 292 

Nursery a Child’s University. 293 

Learning of Outside Life. 293 

Toys Develop Imagination. 293 

The Joy of Children. 294 

Scientific Study of Child Enthusiasm. . 294 
Illustration —Executing Japanese Spies. . . . 295 
An Example of Perfect Happiness. . . . 296 
Delights of Common-place Things. ... 297 

Gallants and Flirts. 298 

Turning the Tables. 298 

Letter of a “Perplexed Husband”. . . . 298 

Married Happiness. 300 

Girls that May be Happily Married. . . . 300 
Illustration —A Line for the City Free Baths. 301 
Countess Russel’s Idea of Woman and 

Home. 302 

The Use of Dress. 303 

Beauty Colony in Russia. 303 

Side Lights on Character Building. . 304 

Obedience. 304 

Lies. 304 

Theories Ancient and Modern Upon 

the Cause of Evil. 305 

Illustration —A Japanese Merchant in the 

War. 307 

The German Emperor’s Address to 
His Sons on Personal Christi¬ 
anity. 310 


BOOK V 

Newest Discoveries—The Secrets of Health and Long Life. 


Frontispiece —Cave Dwellers. 

The Gospel of Health. 315 

Sleep. 317 

The Value of Sound Sleep and How 

to Obtain It . 317 

Ventilation and Light. 318 

Cleanliness and Disinfection. 319 

Air as a Tonic and “Soap”. 319 

Method of Inhalation. 320 

Bathing in Air.321 

An Essential Method of Breathing to 

Retain Health.322 

Water as the Best Medicine. 322 

How Much to Eat . 323 


Food Never Should be Bolted. 323 

Scientific Conclusions as to Smoking 

Tobacco . 324 

Tobacco as a Poison. 324 

Illustration —An Allegory of War. 325 

Excessive Smoking. 326 

Tobacco and the Young. 327 

Effect on Children. 327 

Injury to the Blood. 327 

Injury to Heart, Eyes and Stomach. . 328 

Effect on Growing Body. 328 

Whiskey as a Medicine . 329 

Consumption and Alcohol. 32Q 






























































































8 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


Page. 


Temperance and Life Insurance. 329 

Abstainers Live Longest. 330 

Insurance Premium Low. 330 

Alcohol is a Drug. 330 

Athletes Shun Liquor. 331 

Treating. 331 

Emergencies. 332 

First Aids in Perilous Conditions. 332 

Poisons. 332 

Drowning. 333 

Burns and Scalds. 333 

Lime in the Eye. 333 

Fainting. 334 

Fits and Apoplexy. 334 

Bleeding at the Nose. 334 

Bones in the Throat. 334 

Contusions and Bruises. 334 

Cuts and Wounds. 334 

Snake Bites. 334 

Illustration —Pond Lily Beds in City Parks. 335 
What to do When Really Bitten by a 

Venemous Animal. 336 

The Use of Whiskey. 337 

What Next to Do. 337 

Vaccination—Its Friends and Foes— 

Arguments for and Against. 337 

Anti-Vaccination. 337 

In Favor of Vaccination. 339 

How to Detect Symptoms of Consump¬ 
tion and Directions to Prevent 

Its Spread. 342 

Directions for Suppressing Consump¬ 
tion. 342 

Colds Often Begin Consumption. 343 

State Hospitals. 343 

Flow to Avoid the White Plague. . . . 344 
Monster Ravages of Consumption. . . . 344 

Vast Financial Loss. 344 

Ozone as Life-giver. 344 

Illustration —Tower of London. 345 

Impure Air Deadly. 346 

Home Should be Clean. 346 

Dell’s Mania. 346 

Wound is Nearly Forgotten. 347 

Case Puzzles Physicians. 347 

One Physician Sajrs Hydrophobia.347 

Tells of Rare Disease. 347 

Hydrophobia. 347 

Appendicitis. 348 

Meat and Appendicitis. 348 

A Madstone and Stories of Its Cures . . 349 

A Recent Case. 349 

Discovered by Indians. 349 

A Squaw’s Gratitude. 350 

Illustration —The Bundy Madstone. 350 

Remarkable Cures. 350 

Saved the Bride. 351 

A Difficult Case. 351 

Colds and How to Prevent Them. . . . 351 

Rheumatism and Pneumonia. 354 

Is Rheumatism Contagious ?. 354 

Pneumonia. 354 

Illustration —Training Dogs. 355 

Why Big, Healthy People Die Easiest 

with Pneumonia. 356 

Losing Memory. 357 

Two Brains. 357 

The Use of the Two Brains. 357 

Language Center. 358 

Confusion in the Use of Words. 358 

Complexity of the Brain. 359 


Page. 


Palpitation of the Heart. 359 

A Marvelous Muscle. 359 

Irregular Movements. 359 

Serious Signs. 360 

Causes of Palpitation. 360 

Dizziness or Giddiness.361 

Liver Troubles. 361 

Remedies. 361 

Seasickness. 362 

Special Cases. 362 

Nervous Ailments.362 

Headache. 363 

Symptoms. 363 

Onset. 363 

The Pain. 363 

The Sickness. 363 

Sensation. 363 

Unusual Forms. 363 

Gout v. Migraine. 364 

“Masked Diseases”. 364 

Treatment of Migraine. 364 

Curative. 364 

For the Sickness. 364 

General Measures. 364 

Illustration —Devil’s Slide in Weber’s Can¬ 
yon. 365 

Prevention . 366 

Migraine, Epilepsy and Asthma. 366 

The “Sister of Gout”. 366 

Blood Poisons.366 

Sex, Inheritance. 366 

Exhaustion. 367 

Reflex Causes. 367 

Epitome of Its Causes. 367 

The Fifth Nerve. 367 

The Associated Sickness. 367 

Wounds. 367 

Infection by Microbes. 367 

Cleansing the Wound.'. 368 

Stomach Troubles. 368 

Heartburn, Colic, Nausea and Other 

Ailments. 368 

Pain in the Stomach. 369 

Ulcerous Conditions. 369 

Nausea. 369 

Remedies. 370 

Heartburn. 370 

Acidity. 370 

Digestive Work of the Stomach. 371 

Water and Mineral Substances. 371 

Special Remedies. 372 

Reducing One’s Weight. 372 

A Special Diet. 373 

A Noted System. 373 

Constipation. 373 

Regulation of the Liver. 373 

Easy Remedies. 374 

Proper Food. 274. 

Dru gs. 374 

Illustration —Excelsior Geyser of Yellow¬ 
stone Park. 373 

Varicose Veins. 376 

Cause and Cure of Hay Fever. 377 

Physicians the Worst Sufferers.377 

Method of Obtaining Serum. 378 

Polen in Cereal Grains. 378 

Hysteria. 379 

The Strenuous Life. 379 

Treatment. 380 

Sore Throats. 380 

Tonsilitis. 381 






































































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


9 


* A h., 

A Cure for Worry. 381 

Fomentation. 382 

May Cease Giving Drugs. 382 

Sour Milk is Elixir. 383 

Lactic Acid the Foe of Microbes. 383 

Bacillus of Milk a Fighter for Health. 383 

Battle of the Microbes.383 

How to be Healthy by Physical Ex¬ 
ercise. 383 

Bowling and Throwing. 383 

Illustration —Movements of the Arm. 384 

Illustration —Muir Glacier of Alaska. 385 

Illustration —Throwing Movements. 386 

Why Do This Exercise?. 386 

Health Hints. 387 

A Swim on Land. 387 

Illustration —Swimming Movements. 387 

Illustration —Special Strokes. 388 

Health Hints. 389 

A Bit of Batting. 390 

Illustration —Movements for Women in Bat¬ 
ting. 390 

Illustration —Special Strokes. 391 

Health Hints. 392 

A Row on Land. 392 

Illustration —Strokes in Rowing. 393 

Illustration —Special Strokes. 394 

Health Hints. 394 

Putting Weightless Weights. 394 

Illustration —Through Southern Ice. 395 

Illustration —Women Throwing. 396 

Health Hints. 397 

Starting, Walking, Running. 398 

Illustration —Walking Movements. 398 

Illustration —Getting Ready to Run. 399 

Health Hints. 399 

How to Improve Breathing. 400 

Illustration —Massage of the Head. 401 

Health Hints. 402 

Breathing and Relaxing. 402 

Illustration —Helps to Breathing. 402 

Special Exercise for Health and 

Strength. 404 

Methods Used in the Army and Navy. 404 

Exercise for Hand and Wrist. 404 

Illustration —Photograph of Man Making a 

Relief Map of the Philippines. 405 

Exercise for Arm and Body. 406 

Testing the Purity of Common Foods. 407 

To Test Eggs. 408 

Scientific Formula of Ideal Diet. 408 

How to Know Poison Ivy. 409 

Remedy for the Irritation. 409 

Important Topics of Health. 410 

Flies and Typhoid. 410 

Care of the Eyes. 4 11 

Sense of Smell.4 1 1 

Vegetarians. 4” 

Aid to Digestion. 4 11 

Japanese Lessons on Health. 412 

Noted Precepts for Long Life. 412 

Pearson’s Rules for Health. .. 413 

Mazdaznan Rules for Health.413 


Page. 


Scientific Precepts for Health. 413 

Attainment of Old Age. 414 

Health Maxims.414 

Illustration —Society Going to the Derby. . 415' 

Secrets of Long Life. 416 

Rules of the Famous. 416 

First Rule Avoid Disease. 417 

Holidays and Exercise Necessary. 417 

Vegetarianism. 417 

Summary of the Rules. 418 

Scientific Methods of Retaining the 

Strength of Youth. 419 

The Warning of Short Breath. 419 

Meaning of Second Childhood. 420 • 

Facts About Obesity. 421 

Special General Directions.. 421 

Eating and Drinking. 421 

Auto-Hypnotism and Self-Suggestion 

as Nature’s Cure... 422 

Hypnotic Laboratory. 422 

Hypnotic Eye. 423 

Exercising the Imagination. 423 

Fatiguing Consciousness. 424 

Inducing Sleep in Others. 424 

Illustration —The Cross at New Westmin¬ 
ster Cathedral. 425 

Quackery in Miracles of Healing. . . . 426 

Notable Instances from History. 427 

Imagination to Kill or Cure. 427 

Causes of Death from Old Age. 427 

Why Old Age Kills. ... 428 

Life Engine Clogged by Waste. 429 

Acid that Renovates the Skin. 429 

Hopes to Prolong Vigorous Life. 43Q 

Nature’s Attempts Seen in Odd Cases. . 430 
Average Age of Life at Different Places. 431 
Discovery of Substance that In¬ 
creases Size of Animals. 431 

Some Experiments. 431 

On Rats and Guinea Pigs. 432 

Brain Food. 432 

Phosphorus. 433 

Will It Make Giants. 433 

Government Instruction on Milk. . . . 433 

Sources of Bacteria in Milk. 434 

Air Is not a Home for Bacteria. 434 

Illustration —Italians Robbing the Evil One 

of Power. 435 

Handling of Milk. 436 

What to Do in Times of Danger. 436 

Treatment of Flesh Wounds. 436 

Rules in Case of Fire. 438 

How to Keep from Being Drowned.... 438 

Cramps . 439 

Panics. 440 

How Panic Operates. 440 

Disasters of the Past. 440 

Panics Possible Anywhere. 441 

The Great Precautionary Rule. 441 

When Panic Strikes. 441 

Panic on the Water. 442 

When Panic Works in Individuals. . . . 443 
Panic Prevents Escape. 443 















































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


10 


BOOK VI 

Problems, Mysteries and Powers of Life, Mind and Soul. 


Page. 

Frontispiece —The Catacombs of Rome. 

A Marvelous New Science. 447 

Psychical Research. 448 

Opinions of Sir William Crookes. 448 

Facts in Telepathy. 449 

Evidences of Telepathic Communica¬ 
tion . 449 

Vagueness of Proof. 450 

Scientific Evidences for the Exist¬ 
ence of Man and Gqd. 451 

Persons All Unseen to One Another. 451 
Scientific Evidences of Life After 

Death. 451 

Mysteries of Personality. 452 

The Shock of Death. 453 

Death Compacts. 453 

The New Hell. 454 

Pleasant Perdition. 454 

Illustration —Chess Played with Living Pieces 455 

Seeing the Shadow of a Soul. 456 

Made from the Eyes of Beasts. 456 

Seeing the Soul Ascending. 456 

Animals Giving Off Electric Waves. . . 456 
Rays of Light from the Human Body. 458 

Marvels of the “N” Ray. 458 

Characteristics of the “N” Rays. 458 

Theories of the “N” Ray. 459 

Experiments with the “N” Ray. 459 

Special Peculiarities.460 

Special Radiation of Muscles. 460 

Work of Another Scientist. 461 

Seeing the Mind Through the “N” Ray. 461 

Aureoles and Halos.462 

Strange Radiations of Bodies. 463 

Discovery of “Thought Rays”. 464 

Crystal Gazing. 464 

A Psychological Riddle. 464 

Illustration —A Harvest of Eggs. 465 

Historical Incident. 466 

Modern Views of Black Magic. 466 

Scientific Analysis of Mental Phenome¬ 
non. 467 

Are We Possessed of More than One 

Soul?. 468 

One of Many Marvelous Cases. 468 

Eight different Personalities in One 

Girl. 468 

Our Dual Personality. 469 

A Peculiar Case. 470 

Hypnotic Power. 470 

Lost Identity. 470 

Strange Psychical Maladies. 470 

Special Cases of Partial Insanity. 471 

Traveling in France. 472 

Strange Loss of Memory. . .. 472 

A Lost Lady.472 

Man on Bicycle Loses His Memory . . . 473 

Memory Gone for Seventeen Years. . . . 473 

Periodical Lapses of Memory. 474 

Extraordinary Moral Insanity. 474 

Illustration —Pens of Stock in Chicago Yards 475 


Degenerate Insanity. 477 

H YPNOTISM AND CRIME. 478 

Test Experiments.478 

Civil Law on Hypnotism.479 

Crime as a Hereditary Disease . 480 

Views of a Specialist on Criminals. . . . 480 


Page. 

Crime Called a Disease.480 

Can be Cured by Treatment. 481 

Disuse of the Five Senses. 481 

Soul Development in India.482 

Occult Powers. 482 

Feeling the Presence of Evil. 483 

The Sixth Sense. 483 

Opinions of a Noted Scientist on Tele¬ 
pathy and Clairvoyance. 483 

Telepathy as an Explanation of 
Christ’s Frequent Reference to 

Purity of Heart. 484 

How Anger Means Murder. 484 

Opinions of a Noted Disbeliever. 485 

Illustration —Barnacles on a Ship. 485 

Eminent Scientists Astray. 486 

Fascination in the Mysterious. 487 

Claims Followed to Absurdity. 487 

Curiosities of Sleep and Theories of 

Dreams. 487 

Disordered Nerves. 488 

Causes of Dreams. 488 

Persons Dreaming Alike. 489 

What Dreams are Made of. 489 

How to Cause and Manage Dreams. . . 490 

Applications to the Text. 490 

Dream Senses. 491 

Seeing Snakes. 492 

Weighing Dreams.492 

Miracles. 493 

History and Theories of Modern Won¬ 
der-workers. 493 

Marvelous Cures Where Doctors Failed. 493 

Saved by Shipwreck. 494 

Walked Into the Sea. 494 

Illustration —Cattle Shute at the Chicago 

Stockyards.. 495 

In the Hour of Need. 496 

Fatigue, What Is It?.. 496 

Marvelous Results of Heredity. 498 

Experiment of an Emperor.. 498 

Heredity in Animals. 499 

New Field for Science. 499 

Formula of Heredity.. .. 500 

Past in the Present. 500 

Is Crime a Disease. 501 

Bullet Made Preacher Vicious. 502 

Education not a Panacea. 502 

Easily Distinguished Cases. 503 

The Strange Case of Helen Keller. . 504 

Beginning of Her Education. 504 

Goes to College. 504 

1 llustration —Helen Keller and Her Teacher.. 505 

Winning Classic Honors. 505 

Takes Regular Course. 506 

Writes Out Lectures.,. 506 

Aided by Classmates. ... 506 

What the. Blind Girl Said at the Ex¬ 
position... 507 

Her Message to the World. 507 

Why We Pray When in Trouble. 508 

Divine Benevolence and Horrible 

Disasters. 508 

Christian Faith in the Midst of Destruc¬ 
tion. 508 

Illustration —The General Slocum Starting 

on Its Ill-fated Voyage. 509 

Illustration —The Wreck in Hell-gate. 510 


















































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS, 


11 


Alike to the Lowly and the Great .... 510 
Unchanging, Uncompromising Law. . . 511 

Why Evil Exists by the Side of Good . . 5 11 

The Wages of Justice. 512 

Consequences of Neglected Duty. 512 

Illustration —Disaster of the Scandinavian 

Steamer “Norge”. 513 


Why Do We Laugh ?. 514 

Important Incidental Facts . 514 

Do Animals Faint?. 514 

Psychology of the Mob. 515 

Intellect and Emotion. 515 

Thought as a Mental Crystalization .... 516 
Light and Progress. 516 


BOOK VII 

Remarkable Appearances and Evolutions in Nature. 


Frontispiece —British Troops Before the 


Pyramids. 

Wonders of Vegetations.,. 321 

Big Trees. 521 

History of a Giant Redwood. 521 

Oldest Trees on Earth.- 322 

Illustration —Monarch of the Forest. 523 

Wizard Plants. 324 

Cow Tree of Venezuela. 524 

Soap Tree of Florida. 525 

Whistling Trees. 525 

Natural Thread and Needle. 326 

Cow Itch of Africa. 326 

Cause and Use of Thorns. 526 

How Do Thorns Benefit the Plant ? . . . . 527 

Illustration —Examples of Thorns. 527 

Great Dishrag Farm. 528 

Depth of Roots. 528 

Aversions of Animals. 528 

Peculiar Antipathies. 529 

Animals that do not Drink. 529 

Animals that Bathe. 530 

Illustration —Petrified Forests of Arizona. . 530 

Swimming Animals. 531 

Poisonous Pythons. 531 

Illustration —The Regal Python. 532 

Fancy Mice and Rats. 532 

Waltzing Mice. 532 

Flowers and Flower-like Insects 

and Animals that Live on Flesh 534 

Insect Masqueraders. 534 

Animal Deceptions. 535 

Improving Upon Nature for the 

Pleasure and Benefit of Man. . . 535 

An Important Business. 535 

Flowers that Tell the Time. 536 

Strange Facts About Fish. 537 

Fish that Fight. 537 

Explanation of a Curious Legend. 538 

Musical Fish. 539 

Fish that Dance. 539 

Taste and Smell in Fishes. 540 

Freaks of Equatorial Jungles. 540 

Some Curious Caprices of Animals. . 541 

A Lothario Among Birds. 542 

Illustration —Iona Cathedral. 543 

Government Opinions of the Toad 

and the Quail. 544 

Investigations of the Agricultural De¬ 
partment. 544 

The Toad. 544 


Worms. 

Grasshoppers. 

The Quail. 

Men and Beasts. 

Comparison of Strength. 

Illustration —Horse-power on Different 

Roads. 

Strength of Insects. 

The Life—History of a Splash. 

Illustration —Photographs of a Splash. 

Illustration —Photographs of a Splash . . . . 

Nature’s Greatest Freaks. 

Wonders of Deserts. 

Making a Desert. 

Geysers. 

Ocean Streams. 

Largosso Sea. 

The Maelstrom. 

Glaciers and Icebergs. 

Pitch Lake. 

Crater Lake. 

Petrified Forests. 

The Largest Volcano. 

Yellowstone Park. 

Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 

Illustration —Artesian Well. 

Great Caves. 

Grand Canyon. 

Niagara Falls. 

Greatest Water-falls in the World. . . . 

Mountain of Soap. 

Mirage. 

Great Bones . 

Largest Animals. 

The Deep Sea, Its Freaks and Mon- 


544 

545 

545 

546 

546 

547 

548 

549 

550 

55 1 

55 2 
55 2 

55 2 

553 
553 
553 

553 

554 
554 
554 

554 

555 
555 

555 

55 6 

557 
557 
557 
557 
559 

559 

560 

5 61 


STERS . 561 

Scientists and the Sea-serpent. 561 

A Great Monster. 561 

Evidences Given to a French Society. . 563 

Ancestor of the Sea-serpent. 563 

The Sea-serpent a Land Animal. 564 

Illustration— Sault Ste. Marie Canal. 565 

Description of the Ancient Sea-serpent. 566 

Stories from Annam.566 

Floating Islands . 568 

Method of Construction. 568 

Impeding Navigation. 568 

Mississippi Islets.:.569 

Interesting to Geologists. 569 

Islands that Rise and Disappear. 570 





































































































12 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


BOOK VIII 

Extraordinary Affairs and Conditions Among Mankind. 


Page. 


Frontispiece —Manchurian Bandits. 

The Japanese. 575 

Study and Desire for Improvement.. 575 

Courage, Physical and Moral. 575 

Surrender of Self to Country. 576^ 

Illustration —Japan Opening Its Doors to 

the World. 576 

Illustration —Japan Opening Its Doors to 

Great Britain. 577 

The Lesson to the World. 577 

Their Home Life. 578 

Other Peculiarities. 578 

Their Moral Ideas. 579 

Personal Chastity. 579 

Ideal of a Perfect Woman. 580 

Jiu Jitsu, The Art of Gentle Control. . 580 

Weaponless Warfare. 581 

Vital Touches. 581 

Illustration —Japanese Officer Riding an Ox. 582 

Moral Self-defense. 582 

Peculiar Features. 583 

Remarkable Exercise of Skill. 584 

Suicide in Preference to Capture or 

Dishonor. 584 

Troopship Captured by Russians. 585 

Illustration —-War Galley of Japan in i860. . 585 

Preserving Honor by Suicide. 586 

The Awakening of China. 586 

Policy of the Nations. 587 

The Yellow Peril. 588 

Opinion of the Methodist Bishop of 

Tokyo . 588 

No Religious Antagonism. 589 

A Plea for Christianity. . .. 590 

Religions of Russia. 590 

The Icons of Russia. 591 

Origin of Symbolism.'. 592 

Images Used as Charms.592 

Illustration —General Kuropatkin. 593 

Worst Criminal Colony on Earth. . . . 594 
Wonderful Feats of Indian Fakirs. . 595 

Description by a Noted Traveler. 595 

Religious Beggars. 595 

Learned Fakirs. 596 

An Incredible Explanation. 596 

Marvels Performed. 597 

Lhassa. 598 

Sacred City of Buddhism... 598 

A Hallowed Spot. 598 

Resort of Monks. 599 

How Jews Are Changing. 599 

The New Year Ceremonial. 599 

An Unknown Race at the South Pole. 600 

Illustration —Marshall Oyama. 601 

New Race of Men. 603 

Secret Societies and Their Origin. .. 603 

Some Ramifications. 604 

Joining the Craft. 604 

Order Reaching America. 604 

Concerning the Ritual of Masonry. . . . 605 

Modern Free Masonry. 605 

Occult Fraternities. 606 

Fraternal Insurance. 606 

Membership of Fraternal Societies. . . . 607 

Grand Army of the Republic. 607 

Society of Sons of Veterans. 607 

Origin of the G. A. R. 607 

First National Encampment. 608 J 


Page- 

Its Work and Aims. 608 

Sons of Veterans.. # . 608 

Illustration —General Kuroki. 609 

Gambling Mania in Lotteries. 610 

Winners Always Lose. 610 

Occasional Winners for Advertisement. 610 
Thirty Years Playing Without Win¬ 
ning . 611 

Hoax Proves Cruel. 612 

Suicide Follows Loss. . . /. 612 

Typical Tangles of a King. 613 

Curious Presumptions in English Law. 613 
King at Several Places at Same Time. . 613 

The King’s Pardons. 614 

No Wrong Without a Remedy. 614 

Kleptomaniacs. 615 

Strange Intuitions of Savages. 616 

Mental Telegraphs. 616 

Some Odd Things. 616 

Catacombs of Paris. 616 

Illustration —Russian Rifles. 617 

Persons may be Sent by Mail in Eng¬ 
land . . 618 

Railroad in the Arctic Zone. 618 

Extinction of Lapland. 619 

Climbing the Alps. 619 

Illustration —Snap-shot of Mountain-climb¬ 
ing . 620 

Destructive Snow-slides. 620 

Regiment Swept Under. 620 

Illustration —At the Mountain-top. 621 

Dare-devil Performances. 622 

Thrilling acts for Little Pay. 622 

Power of the Teeth. 622 

Illustration —On a Steeple-top. 623 

Illustration —Over Niagara in a Barrel. 623 

Illustration —Looping the Loop. 624 

Illustration —The Human Sling. 625 

The Way Uncle Sam Celebrates the 

Glorious Fourth. 626 

Sacrifice of Life. 626 

Deadly Toy Pistol. 626 

Fierce Casualties. 627 

Property Destroyed. 627 

Notable Peculiarities. 627 

Infant Body in Adult Mind.627 

German Character Book. 627 

Century of War. 628 

Satan’s Legacy. 628 

Wickedest of Unpunishable Crimes. . . . 628 
Novel Plea for the U. S. Supreme Court. 629 

Miracles in Woman’s Fingers. 630 

Beating Eggs for an Hour. 630 

Not So with Men. 630 

Makes Botch Job. 631 

Cleverness with Needle. 631 

Facts of Peculiar Interest. 632 

When the Blind See. 632 

Illustration —Japanese Rifles. 633 

Extent of Spoken Language. 634 

In Barbarous Thibet. 634 

Strange Facts of the Human Body. . . . 634 
Most Accurate Time-piece in the World. 635 

Sacredness of Moslem Graves. 636 

What the Stone Balls Mean. 637 

Vaccinating the Ground. 637 

Bacteria in Plants. 637 

Trackless Deserts of the Ocean.638 

Bibles in Many Tongues. 639 




















































































































TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


13 


BOOK IX 

Strangest of Strange Events and Facts. 


Frontispiece —A Message from Port Arthur. 
Sinking Earth and Bottomless Pits. . . 

The “Bottomless Pit”. 

Selling a Volcano. 

/ llustratio n —Popocatepetl. 

Found in Odd Places. 

Bullet-hole in the Brain and Mentally 

Sound. 

Policemen Who Marry Their Prisoners. 

Incident from England. 

Incident from the United States. 

Woman or Man. 

A Real Vegetarian. 

A Russian Horror. 

A Magnetic Storm. 

Is Insanity Contagious. 

Strange Tragedy of Old Men. 

Kischeneff Massacre of the Jews. . . 

Remarkable Family Strife. 

Illustration —Turkish Massacres in Mace¬ 
donia . 

Entire Family in Feuds. 

Calls Brother an Enemy. 

Woman Asserts Poverty. 

Use of Cosmetics Denied. 

Psychic Phenomenon. 

Direct Messenger of God. 

Describes Heaven and Hell. 

A Most Wonderful Man. 

Telepathic Communication Between 
a Well-known Author and His 

Dog. 

Novelist Claims to Have Transcribed 

a Book Written by a Spirit. 

Lived in Ancient Rome. 

Girl Recites Story. 

Noted Poet-Dramatist Has Experi¬ 
ences . 

Miraculous Lightening-made Picture.. 

Startling Discovery. 

How It Happened. 

A Photographic Theory. 

One Who Saw the Burn. 

Illustration —A Tibetan “Booby-trap”. 

Other Similar Cases on Record. 

Phenomena less Frequent. 

Some Other Instances. 

A Remarkable Man and the Lawsuit 

of His Heirs. 

Strange Vicissitudes of a Man with 

a Double. 

Identified by Many Women. 

Many Witnesses Establish Identity. . . 

Became a Hounded Man. 

The Double Found at Last. 

A Remarkable Decision on Church 

Property. 

Small Remnant Greatly Enriched. 

Case Carried to House of Lords. 

In a Fire-works Factory. 

How Lurid Explosives Are Made. 

Illustration —Coolies Moving a Big Gun.... 

Abattoir of the World. 

The Great Slaughter-house. 

Illustration —Meaning of Globes Upon Gate 

Posts. 

Berlin’s Wonderful Horse. 

He Could Do Almost Anything but 

Talk. 

Incident of Equine Sagacity. 


Page. 

6 4 3 
644 

644 

645 

645 

646 

646 

647 

648 

648 

649 

650 
650 

65 1 
1 

652 

652 

6 53 

654 
654 

654 

6 55 
655 
6 55 

655 

656 


656 

656 

656 

6 57 

6 5 7 

658 

658 

6 59 

6 5 9 

660 

661 

662 
662 

662 

663 

664 

664 
663 

665 

666 

666 

667 

668 
668 
668 
669 
67 1 

671 

672 

673 

673 

674 


Illustration —The Wonderful German Horse. 674 

Examination by Scientists. 675 

How Bank Robbery is Made Impossible 675 

Steel Lining of Vaults. 675 

Only Officials Allowed Inside. 676 

Can’t Use Nytro-glycerine. 676 

Provide for Watchman’s Failure. 677 

Latest Explorations .. . . . 677 

Dug by Pre-historic Race. 678 

How Aborigines Fought. 678 

Savages Tamed by Music. 678 

Habits of a Savage Tribe. 679 

Cemetery of Elephants. 679 

Residence of the Dalai Lama. 679 

Notable and Curious Items of Inter¬ 
est . 680 

Tail of a Comet. 680 

Origin of Diamonds. 680 

Atmosphere and Clouds. 681 

Illustration —Intrenchment Safety Gun. . . . 681 

The Heaviest Rainfall. 681 

Land Heights. 682 

Hot Artesian Water.682 

UndergroundWater. 682 

To Bring Down Soot. 682 

Some Notable Bridges. 682 

Four Kinds of Years. 683 

Strange Consequences of War. 683 

Growth of Hair.683 

Supposition of Continuous Growth.... 683 

Jump of Man Flea. 683 

Fish Worth Their Weight in Gold. . . . 683 

As Others Hear Us. 684 

Our “Hurrah” is Vicious. 684 

Value of Soot. 684 

Are You a Degenerate. 684 

Secret Inks. 685 

Vast Underground Wall in Texas. 686 

Plows Turn Up Bricks. 686 

Road Near By. 686 

Strange Colision of Locomotive and 

a Boat. 686 

Sayings of Jesus not in the Bible. 686 

Illustration —Shroud of Christ. 687 

Priestess Mummy as a Hoodoo. 688 

Japanese Petition in Blood. 689 

Illustration —Copy of the Petition. 689 

What Time Really Is It?. 689 

A Costly Railroad. 690 

Pan-American Railroad. 691 

Steepest Railway in the World. 692 

French Monument at Waterloo. 692 

Illustration —Result of Japanese Shell Fire. 693 

Strange Place for a Lecturer. 694 

Illustration —Place of the Lectures. 694 

The Vatican. 694 

Pilgrimage to Lourdes. 695 

Illustration —Train Arriving at Lourdes... 695 
Russia’s Rich Seal and Otter Rook¬ 
eries. 696 

Adventurous Sealers. 696 

Greatest Individual Land Owners in 

the World. 697 

Greatest Land Owner in the U. S. 69, 

Richest Girl in the World. 698 

Greatest Battles of Modem Times. . . . 698 
Illustration —Amunition Hoist of Battleship. 699 

Last Surviving Union Soldier. 700 

A Hero of the Gallows. 700 

Remarkable Feats of Rapid Work. . . . 701 






















































































































14 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


BOOK X 


Recent Creeds, Doctrines, Formulas and Fads of Thought. 


Page. 


Frontispiece —Mausoleum of Woodlawn 
Cemetery. 

General Principles of Socialism. 705 

Illustration —Search-lights at Port Arthur. . 707 

Communism in Bolivia. 708 

The Doukhobors. 710 

Illustration —Russians Firing at Dummy 

Torpedo Boats. 711 

The Amana Society. 712 

The Shaker Buddhists. 713 

The Divine Life Association. 714 

Illustration —Japanese Cannon Screens .... 715 

Spiritualism Organized. 717 

Illustration —Russian Temporary Railway 

Over Frozen River. 719 

Religious Freaks of the Orient. 722 

Illustration —Winter in Manchuria. 723 

Fortune-telling, Opinions of a Noted 

Scientist. 724 

Have We Had Pre-existence?. 725 

Phenomena from Ghostland. 726 

Ghosts Are Harmless. 726 

Illustration —Russian Train Loads of Wound¬ 
ed . 727 

Ghosts Too Thin to be Seen. 728 

Some Speculations. 728 

Ghost Pictures in Demand. 729 

The Fakes and Fakirs of Spiritual¬ 
ism. 729 

A Queer Case. 730 

An Investigation. 730 

Illustration —Japanese Patrol. 731 

Doors Shut, Windows Dark. . .-. 732 

Views a Seance. 732 

Light Pierces Disguise. 732 

Tricks of Arms and Legs. 733 

Little Child Appears. 733 

Prices for Various Outfits. 733 

State Tricks Are the Simplest. 734 

Test Mediums Tested. 734 

Illustration —Japanese Human Ladder. 

Scaling a Wall. 735 

Remarkable Proof. 736 

Psychics. 737 

How it is Done. 738 

Luminous Sleep. 738 

Tennyson as an'Example. 738 

Illustration —Horrors of War. 739 

Can We Learn During Sleep?. 740 

Revival of Belief in Witchcraft. . . . 740 
A Peculiar Religious Community.... 741 

Room for 10,000,000 Persons. 741 

Hight Priest of the Order. 741 

Gods and Devils of Many Lands. 742 

Strange Practices. 742 

Illustration —Cavalry Battle in a Thunder¬ 
storm . 743 

Vast Numbers of Pilgrims. 743 

Devil Trees. 744 

Telepathy. 744 

Opinions of a Great Scholar. 744 

A Special Instance. 745 

Instinct for the Supernatural. 745 

Illustration —Terrific Power of a Japanese 

Shell. 749 

Are Other Planets Inhabited?. 750 

Years Twice as Long as Ours. 750 


Page. 


People More Advanced. 751 

Atmosphere Much Like Ours. 751 

How to get Fat of Thin. 751 

Regulate the Fuel Foods. 752 

Flesh-reducing Diet. 752 

Sweets and Fats for Thin Ones. 752 


Illustration —Field Strewn with Dead. 

Holding Obesity in Check. 

Old People Usually Thin. 

Should Food be Salted. 

Part of Woman’s Price for Vanity. . . 
Skinning the Face for a Complexion . . . 
How the Thin Woman Wrecks Her 

Health. 

Illustration —War at Night. 

New York Beauty-mad. 

Hairdressers Golden Harvest. 

Every Man Has His Price. 

How to Cultivate the Memory. 

Illustration —Giant Cranes. 

Strangest Newspaper in the World. . 

A Library 8904 Years Old. 

Tablets Taken from Nippon. 

Miscellaneous Facts of General In¬ 
terest. 

Herds of Wild Camels in the United 

States. 

Illustration —Cranes of Chicago Drainage 

Canal. 

World’s Longest Fence. 

The Gypsy Moth. 

How Coffee Grows. 

Origin of the White Race. 

Curious Bell Sound on the Red Sea. . . . 

Extraordinary Vitality of Seeds. 

Illustration —Chicago Postoffice Dome in 

Construction. 

Most Remarkable Plant Known. 

Example of the Tyranny of Militarism . 

Vastness of Space. 

Largest Flower in the World. 

List of Inventions That Would Bring 

Vast Riches. 

Hand Work vs. Machine Work. 

Discovery of Single Means for Purifying 

Large Bodies of Water... 

Telepathy Among Insects. 

Dr. Lyman Abbott’s Conception of God, 

Signed Statement of Belief. 

Strange Animal Friendships. 

Odd Instances of Companionship. 

Memorable Seige and Fall of Port 

Arthur. 

Disaster to Stakelberg. 

Dash of Russian Fleet. 

Depend on Sapping and Dynamite .... 

Ships in Harbor Destroyed. 

Heroism of the Japanese. 

Stoessel’s Stubborn Defense. 

Stoessel’s Ofifir to Surrender. 

General Nogi’s Acceptance. 

Nogi Enters Citadel. 

Stoessel’s Final Council of War. 

Russian Generals Weep. 

Ships in Harbor Destroyed. 

Russian’s Loss in Port Arthur. 


753 

754 
754 

754 

755 

75 6 

75 6 

757 

758 

759 

759 

760 

761 

762 

763 
7 6 3 

764 
764 


7 6 5 

766 
766 

766 

767 

767 

768 


769 

770 

770 

771 

771 

772 

773 

774 

775 

776 
776 
778 
778 


780 

780 
7S0 

781 
781 

781 

782 
782 

782 

783 
783 
783 

783 

784 


















































































































BOOK I 


Revelations of Science 

IN THE 


MOST ADVANCED PROBLEMS 
OF LIFE AND NATURE 


GREATEST DISCOVERIES IN THE FIELDS OF RECENT 
EXPERIMENT AND RESEARCH BY THE 
MASTER MINDS OF THE AGE 














Submarine torpedo vessel rising to surface to note the destruction of a battle-ship. 
















£ Revelations of Science | 

STUPENDOUS AND RAPID PROGRESS OF 

KNOWLEDGE. 


O keep lip with modern scientific 
progress an article ought to 
be written at least once every 
three hours. At this writing 
intense activity prevails in the 
laboratories of the world. The sciences 
that are in the forefront just now are elec¬ 
tricity, radiation, psychology, electro¬ 
chemistry and astronomy. The advances 
in electricity now made daily seem to pre¬ 
figure and forecast the fact that the hab- 
its, customs, mode of living and civiliza¬ 
tion of mankind will all be changed by the 
common use of electricity. Perhaps it is 
not wild to say that three-fourths of the 
work of the world will be done by elec¬ 
tricity—the writer believes in nine-tenths, 
but will say three-quarters. 

ADVANCEMENT IN TRANS¬ 
PORTATION. 

All railways at least will be run by 
the still unknown agency. We say un¬ 
known, for, although the chief scientific 
men of the world believe that electricity is 
composed of Thomsonian corpuscles, 
rigid mathematical proof is not yet made. 
The building of electrical railways is now 
going on at a rate so rapid that one can- 
not follow the details. No such colos¬ 
sal movement of capital, advanced by the 
leading financiers of the world, in so short 
a time has appeared in history. Southern 


California is simply being covered by a 
network of almost perfect electric rail¬ 
roads. The Huntington system is not 
surpassed in the United States. Ohio is 
being traversed in all directions, and so is 
Massachusetts. 

The gigantic tunnel under the Hudson 
River from Jersey City to New York is 
gradually nearing completion after thirty 
years of toil. Electricity only will be the 
motive power for the cars. The immense 
underground railways under the City of 
New York are all actuated by electric 
currents. Steam railways are being turned 
into electric in many parts of the world 
where water power is plenty. 

If a buzzsaw is in rapid motion it 
seems to be at resi. And this idea may 
apply to progress, for it is so rapid that 
the observer is dazed and confused, and 
the panorama, so far as be is concerned, 
might as well be quiescent—he fails to 
comprehend. 

AMAZING 

FEATS OF CONSTRUCTION. 

Since old King Sulphis put up his big 
pyramid no such feats of engineering 
have been consummated. The new bridge 
between New York and Brooklyn is one 
of the most sublime works ever wrought 
by human bands. In fact, the vast city, 
New York, is now one great centre of 












18 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


magnificent engineering. This bridge 
took seven years to build, and every cable, 
bolt, brace and stone was first in the 
clutch of mathematics. One sight of the 
formulas of the higher analysis in com¬ 
puting the strength of materials, strains, 
pressure, pushes and pulls is enough to 
cause one's brain to whirl. The genius 
of man was called into play to swing the 
enormous cables. Vast anchors were bur¬ 
ied deep into the earth in New York and 
Brooklyn to keep the cables from sagging. 
They alone—the anchors—cost $1,570,- 
000, the total cost of the bridge and land 
terminals being over $20,000,000. Its 
length over the river between towers is 
1,600 feet, and the width of the floor 
is 118 feet. Two steam railroads, four 
electric, two roads for horse carriages and 
two for foot passengers fill this elevated 
aerial street. 

A system of running railway cars at 
great speed at low cost has just been de¬ 
vised in Berlin. The problem seems to 
have been solved in this case by means 
of alternating currents at high pressure, 
which can be transmitted on a small wire 
at lower cost than direct low pressure. 
Vast and world-wide changes will be 
made in electrical railways the moment 
that alternating currents can be sent 
directly into the motors under the cars 
without the present expensive cost of 
transformation of low direct into high 
alternating. Really, it will change the 
transportation problem of the world. 

Another gigantic work of engineering 
is that of the Edison Portland Cement 
Works. He crushes stones in the great 
rollers that in many cases weigh five tons 
each. The use of Portland cement in 


our giant buildings is rapidly on the in¬ 
crease. 

MYSTERIES OF RADIATING 
ENERGY. 

In radiation the world is continually 
being startled with the discovery of new 
waves of many varying lengths that issue 
from almost every object. In fact, it is 
now thought that energy waves emanate 
from every phase of matter. The diffi¬ 
culty so far has been to make apparatus 
delicate enough to detect them and mea¬ 
sure their lengths. Waves that are set 
up by the human body and brain are 
easily detected at present. The wave 
question is now immense; for one brain 
devoting all the time can scarcely follow 
the rapid strides. Wireless telegraphy is 
intricate enough to take the entire atten¬ 
tion of any one desiring to know how- 
daily papers, printed on steamers in mid¬ 
ocean, receive the news. 

The lengths of the waves of electric 
disturbance, ordinarily used in wireless 
transmissions, range from 460 to 3.600 
feet. The length of sound waves, com¬ 
monly employed in music, vary from two- 
fifths of an inch to thirty feet. The 
shortest w r ave of light that can be seen 
by the human eye runs 64,000 to the inch 
and 33,000 for the longest. 

Radium, Rontgent and Blondlot waves 
are still shorter than the shortest waves 
called light. The Blondlot are the “N” 
rays, which have been found streaming 
forth from the human body. 

STARTLING SCIENCE OF MIND. 

Psychology, the science of mind, is 
now attracting the attention of many of 
the most intellectual men of the world. 
Its study is spreading faster than that 




19 


REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


of any other science, except electricity. 
The human mind is now known to be an 
engine of the most intricate complexity. 
Its labyrinths are now being explored 


deep. The star Antares, the red star 
now in the Southeast at sunset, in Scor¬ 
pio, has been weighed by Astronomer 
Gore of England. It contains 88,000 



A bare volcanic stump, known as the Wyoming Tepee, and probably one of tbe oldest 
geological points on the American continent. Only the core showing basalt in 
columnar form remains, the ash-built slopes having been completely worn away by 
the action of the weather. 


hourly in this country and in Europe. 

Astronomy is expanding. Sounding 
lines of mathematics are being sunk into 
the most appalling depths of space. Here 
is one of the things dragged from the 


times more matter than our sun, and it 
contains 333,000 times more than is in 
the earth. By multiplying one can find 
how many worlds like this earth could be 
made out of the giant sun Antares. 


















BOOK OF THE TIMES 


20 


THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 


We find ourselves born, without choice 
of our own, into a universe which we do 
not understand, and which corresponds, 
as it seems, only in the most imperfect 
and fragmentary way with those of our 
desires and aspirations which we increas¬ 
ingly believe to be legitimate and good. 
From this universe we are removed, as we 
entered it, without notice or warning, and 
without any reference to our willingness 
or unwillingness to depart. Before de¬ 
parting, we have, commonly and with¬ 
out much reflection, produced others to 
undergo in their turn the same enigmatic 
destiny. And so from generation to gen¬ 
eration the race is continued; achieving 
much, yet accomplishing nothing; learn¬ 
ing much, yet remaining ignorant of 
everything; acting, thinking, feeling, yet 
haunted by the doubt whether it is not 
all a dream; pursuing Good and contend¬ 
ing with Evil in a scheme of things which 
never appears itself to take sides; devel¬ 
oping the means to happiness, yet never 
becoming happier; pressing ever onward 
to goals that are never reached; and re¬ 
tiring, section after section, baffled but 
never acknowledging defeat, to make 
room for new combatants in the contest 
that is always old. 

THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT. 

Suppose a man to have accepted—as 
many now have, provisionally at least— 
the view which seems to be suggested by 
modern science: that the world, as a 
whole, is neither good nor bad, but simply 
indifferent to moral values; that the life 
of mankind is but a brief and insignifi¬ 
cant episode in its strictly determined but 
purposeless activity; that it tends to no 


goal having ethical significance, still less 
to one corresponding to our conceptions 
of Good—suppose a man to have accepted 
this, is he, therefore, debarred from re¬ 
ligion? Surely not. On the contrary, 
there would seem to be open to him two 
attitudes at least, either of which he will 
adopt, according to his character, if he 
has the religious instinct at all; and either 
of which may be fairly called religious. 
Thus he may, adhering passionately to 
our standards of value (none the less 
true because their realization is so imper¬ 
fect and precarious), pursue, wherever 
it flees, the perishing image of Good, 
imprisoning it in a rule or a policy, im¬ 
pressing it on a fugitive act, embalming 
it in the flux of feeling, reflecting it in 
the mirror of art, always from the con¬ 
sciousness of frustration drawing new 
vigor for the chase, snatching defiance 
from the sense of defeat, patience from 
the fire of passion, from the very indif¬ 
ference of the universe gathering the in¬ 
spiration to contend with it, and, though 
at last he be broken, perishing unsubdued, 
weaker yet greater than the blind world 
which, though it made him and de¬ 
stroyed, was incapable of understanding 
or valuing its own creation. 

A BAD OR INDIFFERENT WORLD. 

Such a man, sustained by such a con¬ 
viction, honestly held, I should call re¬ 
ligious, as Prometheus was religious. 
And if to some he should appear rather 
to be blasphemous, that will be only be¬ 
cause they do not share what I have sup¬ 
posed to be his intellectual position. 
Granting a bad or indifferent world, to 
defy it will be a form of religion. But 





REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


21 


not the only possible form, even on that 
hypothesis, for where one man practices 
defiance, another may practice renuncia¬ 
tion ; and the conviction that Good can 
not be realized, or can be realized, if at 
all, only in connection with greater Evil, 
may lead to the creed of the annihilation 
of desire, instead of the affirmation of 
will. Escape, not battle, then becomes 
the goal, as in the Buddhist faith, and 
the philosophy of Schopenhauer and 
Hartmann. And this attitude, too, will 
be religious, if it he greatly and imagi¬ 
natively conceived; religious not by vir¬ 
tue of its intellectual content, but by vir¬ 
tue of its sense of a world-issue turning 
upon the ideas of Good and Evil. 


But now suppose a radically different 
scientific conception of the world. Sup¬ 
pose it to be believed that our ideas of 
Good and Evil are also those with which 
the universe is concerned, that it is mov¬ 
ing toward a goal, and a goal of which 
we approve, that with it moves the human 
race, and even individual souls, surviving 
death and ultimately entering into their 
perfection. On this view, religion as¬ 
sumes a radically different complexion. 
It is optimistic instead of pessimistic; it 
has exchanged the horror of night for 
the midday sun. But it is still religion; 
for its essence is still the same; an imag¬ 
inative conception of the universe, as a 
whole, in relation to Good and Evil. 


SCIENCE NOT THE ENEMY BUT THE ALLY OF 

RELIGION. 


The world hears a great deal about the 
impossibility of reconciling religion and 
science, and the unthinking are apt to 
deduce from the phrase the idea that 
geology and evolution and the X-rays 
have driven God from the world. 

It is true that the geologist’s hammer 
and the biologist’s patience and the 
astronomer’s telescope have shown that 
the Jewish cosmogony set forth in the 
Bible was fanciful. But religion does not 
depend for its existence upon the legends 
of an Asiatic race. 

WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Religion consists in the belief that 
there is a universal plan behind the visible 
universe; that co-existent with the world 
of our five senses there is another, finer, 
less material, or more spiritual (as one 
may choose to phrase it) ; and that, com¬ 
prehending the world seen and the world 


unseen, there is a power, in Matthew 
Arnold's phrase, “a power not ourselves 
that makes for righteousness.” 

For this belief compels the faith that 
our lives do not end here, and therefore 
it is our duty to improve ourselves in 
harmony with the universal plan, which 
is all there is of ethics; and faith and 
ethics are religion. 

All the articles of this necessary belief 
are established firmly by modern science, 
not controverted and destroyed. Nobody 
who knows the phenomena of electricity, 
for example, to say nothing of the Roent¬ 
gen rays and the radiographic activity 
of the newest discovery, radium, dare as¬ 
sert that the material, the visible, the 
tangible—and these only—have existence. 

ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE SOUL. 

These things do not prove that there 
is a human soul, but they make it im- 









22 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


possible longer to deny that there may 
be one, accountable and immortal. 

Nobody who is familiar with the dis¬ 
coveries of evolution can deny that there 
is a universal plan, indicating a design 
having an omnipotent designer. 

This may not prove there is an omnipo¬ 
tent intelligence behind it, but it makes 
it impossible to deny that there may be. 


In every respect the recent researches 
of science, instead of weakening man's 
reasons for faith and ethics, which are 
religion, have strengthened them, if not 
fortified them against all assault. 

Science has made atheism seem idiocy 
and has forever banished materialism 
from human thought. 


MAN AND THE UNIVERSE. 


If the reader is in a room twenty feet 
long, twenty feet wide and twelve high, 
then a computation may be made as fol¬ 
lows : Suppose the reader to have a lit¬ 
tle box one inch in length, one in width, 
and one in height. Let the interior of 
the box be a perfect vacuum. Then drill 
a hole about one-thousandth of the diame¬ 
ter of a hair, and admit air. Let the 
air rush in until the box is filled to the 
same pressure within as without. And 
let the current of air carry in 1,000,000 
pieces of dust through the narrow open¬ 
ing, then it can be well imagined that 
each dust particle is very small. The box 
would hold many more millions of motes, 
for the air inside is that ordinarily taken 
into the lungs at every breath; indeed its 
purity is greater than that inhaled in 
cities. 

FROM LITTLENESS TO NOTHING. 

But, with only one million in a cubic 
inch they are so minute that no human 
brain can even begin to think of how 
small they are. To tell the diameter of 
one would be useless, for the mind would 
still be unable to form any conception of 
a dimension so insignificant. Languages 
might be searched to find a word that 
would describe one of them. No word 


could be found, but there is one that 
comes very near giving an impression 
from one mind to another. That word 
is nothing. 

The nearest neighbor our sun has is 
another similar to it; the star—actually 
a sun—named Alpha Centauri. Its dis¬ 
tance is twenty-five trillion miles. A 
trillion is one million million. Our sun 
—a little star really—is therefore mon¬ 
arch of a sphere whose diameter is twen¬ 
ty-five trillion miles. 

The diameter of the earth we call our 
home is known with great accuracy; per¬ 
haps within an error of one thousand feet. 
This, of course, gives its volume equal 
precision. Therefore the volume of the 
cosmic sphere, of which our sun is the 
center divided by the volume of the earth, 
shows how many times the sphere is 
larger than the earth. It is 3 followed 
by twenty-eight naughts times larger; a 
number so utterly beyond brain power 
that any attempt to think of it is useless. 

But with one million particles of dust 
to the cubic inch, the room w r ould con¬ 
tain eight followed by twelve naughts. 
Divide one of these numbers by the other, 
and the quotient is four quadrillion. That 
is, each space dominated by a piece of 








23 


REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


dust in the box is larger in proportion 
to the size of the room than the entire 
earth is to the sphere dominated by the 
sun. 

INCONCEIVABLE SMALLNESS OF 
THE EARTH. 

Search all languages for a word to tell 
the smallness of the earth, and not one 
can be found so accurate as the word 
nothing. 

Let us now put in dust until the box 
is filled and assume that all air is ex¬ 
cluded, and that one hundred million par¬ 
ticles are required. Then each is forty 
million times larger in relation to the 
volume of the room than the earth is to 
the sphere of space surrounding the sun, 
having the minute diameter of twenty-five 
trillion miles. For the distance of the 
sun’s nearest neighbor is known within 
the limit of small error. 

No mental power of man in his present 
scarcely trained and barbaric condition is 
able even to begin a series of coherent 
thoughts on this mighty maze of figures. 
For let a mind be trained now to a degree 
of culture the highest at present attain¬ 
able, such as that reached by the great 
French and German mathematicians — 
where one mind knows more of nature 
than ten million other selected minds— 
attack these vast numbers, then it would 
be overwhelmed in a moment. 

Research in this note, trying to find 
how small the earth is, has scarcely com¬ 
menced yet; for, although the space 
sphere, having a diameter of twenty-five 
trillion miles, is large enough to contain 
thirty octillion worlds like the earth, the 
appalling fact now looms up—this colos¬ 
sal sphere itself, to be described with near 
approach to accuracy, would require the 


use of that short, simple, easily remem¬ 
bered, impressive, all-potent word noth¬ 
ing! It comes in at the critical time when 
searching for words, and suits the case 
admirably. 

NOTHINGNESS OF THE EARTH. 

This may be cleared thus: No mind— 
not even of the ablest mathematicians, 
where one man knows more than ten mil¬ 
lion others—would be powerful enough 
to traverse vast wildernesses, broad ex¬ 
panses and complex labyrinths of figures 
and detect the difference bet wen these 
two sentences: The earth is nothing and 
the earth is next to nothing. 

So far the dimensions of the earth 
have been compared to space fairly well 
known to modern astronomy; but if it be 
compared in mass to the mass of matter 
now known to be in existence, the earth 
again emerges from a sea of mathematics 
so unutterably and indescribably small 
that the mind actually finds relief from 
stress and tension always experienced in 
these investigations by summoning to our 
aid the quieting and soothing word— 
nothing. But the earth is man’s place in 
nature. 

THE SIZE OF AN ATOM. 

How large is an atom ? Perhaps the 
simplest though not the most exact way 
of arriving at a rough estimate of the 
size of atoms is by measuring the thick¬ 
ness of a soap-bubble film, where it is 
as thin as possible just before it bursts. 
Such a film, if composed of atoms, 
must be something like a pebble wall. 
Now a pebble wall would not stand 
if it were not several pebbles thick 
and if we had reason to suppose that it 
was about a dozen pebbles thick we could 










iJ4 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


easily make an estimate of the size of a 
pebble by measuring the thickness of the 
wall. That is the case with the thinnest 
region of a soap film. It is found to 
have a very definite and uniform thick¬ 
ness. It is the thinnest thing known and 
by refined optical means its thickness can 
be accurately measured. It must contain 
not less than something like a dozen 
atoms in its thickness and yet it is only 
about the twenty-millionth of an inch 
in thickness by direct measurement. So 
that the diameter of an atom comes out 
between one two-hundred-millionth and 
one three-hundred-millionth of an inch. 
In other words from about 200,000,000 
to 300,000,000 of atoms can lie edge to 
edge in a linear inch. 

THE SMALLNESS OF THE VISIBLE 
UNIVERSE. 

But here we are all at sea, for psy¬ 
chologists have discovered that the hu¬ 
man mind in its current and passing 
phase of evolution from primordial con¬ 
sciousness in the remote past, to approach¬ 
ing and limitless reason in the distant fu¬ 
ture—is unable to think of the meaning 
of the word nothing. It is, of course, 
scarcely accurate to say that a sphere of 

HOW STARS 

The immensity of the abyss that sep¬ 
arates us from stars about which planets 
might revolve prevents us from gather¬ 
ing evidence of the existence of other sys¬ 
tems—stars so large and brilliant that, 
compared with them, our sun, if trans¬ 
ported to their distance from the earth, 
would appear no bigger than a coin a 
thousand miles away. Even a telescope 
many times more powerful than the in¬ 


space twenty-five trillion miles in diame¬ 
ter bears so minute a relation fi> space 
now known to astronomers that the pro¬ 
portion could be included under the word 
nothing. What we mean to say is that in 
comparison the dimensions of the sphere 
is next to nothing. This has an approach 
to precision. For from star gauges, pho¬ 
tometric determinations, proper motions, 
computations and estimates, modern criti¬ 
cal research has led to the conclusion, a 
conclusion whose limit of error may prob¬ 
ably be set within -twenty per cent, that 
the portion of the sidereal structure visible 
in the largest telescope has a diameter 
so enormous that light moving 186,000 
miles during each second of time requires 
30,000 years to traverse it. 

A sphere with this diameter is 350 
billion times larger than the microscopic 
sphere of only twenty-five trillion miles 
in diameter. So the little sphere con¬ 
trolled by our sun is not strictly nothing, 
but is very near it. Call the celestial 
sphere 300 billion times larger than the 
little one, allow fifty billion for mistakes 
in measuring these brain-stupefying dis¬ 
tances, then the final result, so far as 
the size of the earth is concerned, is not 
changed. 

ARE MADE. 

struments now mounted in observatories 
would not help the astronomer where the 
distance between him and the hypotheti¬ 
cal centre of a remote solar system is 
such that the light of that centre, travel¬ 
ing at the rate of 186,000 miles per sec¬ 
ond, reaches us only after the lapse of 
centuries; so that we see the star not as 
it is now, hut as it was hundreds of years 
ago when Columbus discovered America. 






REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


25 



Gods and devils of mankind. Complete collection from the principal religions. 
























26 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Obviously, the evidence supporting the 
doctrine of the primeval cloud must be 
gathered by means more exquisite in their 
refinement than the telescope alone pro¬ 
vides. 

The light of the sun, as everybody 
knows at this late day, consists of many 
hues, some brilliant and others dull, all 
of which united form a white glare. The 
separation of the sun’s white light into 
its constituent colors and lines—its spec¬ 
trum—is accomplished by prisms of 
glass. 

SODIUM IN THE SUN. 

It was discovered rather late in the 
last century that each of these colors, 
or groups of colors, or lines, were pro¬ 
duced by glowing chemical elements. A 
grain of common table salt—sodium 
chloride—heated to incandescence in the 
blue flame of a Bunsen burner, exhibits 
a spectrum in which a yellow tint is the 
predominant feature. That yellow tint 
is characteristic of the element sodium; 
it always appears in the same place when 
seen in the spectroscope. The same yel¬ 
low gleam appears in the spectrum of the 
sun exactly in the same position. What 
better evidence can there be that the metal 
sodium is contained in the sun? 

Thus the spectroscope has enabled the 
astronomer to determine not only what 
known metals and gases are glowing in 
the sun, but even what unknown ele¬ 
ments are contained in the centres of our 
solar system. And thus it becomes a mat¬ 
ter of no great difficulty to analyze a 
star chemically with the utmost nicety, 
although separated from us by a chasm 
that can be measured only by millions 
of miles. 


AGE CHANGES SPECTRUMS. 

A body that has just condensed from 
the original mist will have a spectrum 
quite different from that of a body ten 
million years older; and this older body 
will in turn exhibit a spectrum unlike that 
of an orb still more aged. Just as the 
ancestry of the modern horse is traced 
through the many-toed skeletons of his 
geologic forefathers, so the life-history of 
a star is traced by stellar spectra. The 
groups of colors and lines that distinguish 
each glowing celestial body can be ar¬ 
ranged in a series as orderly as that of 
prehistoric equine skeletons. 

From the spectroscopic study of the 
heavens it has been concluded that the 
cloud-like masses known as nebulae are 
the stuff of which stars are made. Each 
nebula is a fiery mist which, as the ages 
go by, congeals into a star. So far has 
congelation progressed in some of these 
glowing mists that they have been called 
by astronomers “planetary nebulae.” 

In the constellation of Orion a plane¬ 
tary nebula is found in which a brilliant 
spot may be seen, consisting in reality of 
four stars, all of them suns probably as 
large as, if not larger than, our own. 
Those four suns tellingly exemplify the 
development of a star. That they con¬ 
stitute a system of their own cannot be 
questioned; and that they were formed 
by the draining of the primeval mist is 
amply proved by the empty blackness of 
the nebula immediately surrounding 
them. 

NEBULA OF ORION. 

Examined by the spectroscope, the 
nebula of Orion is found to consist of an 
enormous volume of incandescent gas, 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


27 


partly hydrogen, partly nitrogen, partly 
an unknown gas; and in this great volume 
of gas stars are plunged. When it is 
considered that the gases of which the 
four stars in question are constituted are 
exactly the same as those of the nebula 
itself, we can no longer doubt that in 
Orion may be found a most wonderful 
example of stellar evolution. 

That nebulae are really composed of 
gas and that they may be considered 
early stages in stellar evolution, are dis¬ 
coveries due to Sir William and Lady 
Huggins. Before their epoch-making in¬ 
vestigations it was supposed by many an 
astronomer that nebulae were in reality 
only vast numbers of stars clustered to¬ 
gether so closely that they appeared as a 
haze in the sky. That supposition was 
not without some basis in fact. Viewed 
through a small telescope many a star 
cluster is simply a blur of light that might 
well be mistaken for a nebula; but in a 
powerful instrument the blur is resolved 
into independent stars. 

SPECTROSCOPE DECIDES 
QUESTION. 

Chemical analysis by Sir William 
Huggins’ spectroscopic method has set¬ 
tled whatever dispute there may once 
have been, and has rendered it possible 
to determine which masses are really 
nebulae and which only clusters of closely 
packed stars. The composition of a star 
cluster is as different from that of nebula 
as water from iron. 

Like flowers and animals, nebulae dif¬ 
fer much in size, form and appearance. 
Some are extremely irregular, like the 
nebula in Orion; some mere wisps of 
light, like the nebula in the constellation 


of Cygnus; others so well defined in shape 
that they are mistaken for comets, like 
the nebula in Andromeda; still others are 
ring-shaped and filled with milky light. 
Most remarkable of all, perhaps, are the 
spiral nebulae, an admirable example of 
which may be found in Canes Yenatici. 
The primordial mist may possibly have 
assumed some such spiral form. At all 
events, recent investigations seem to prove 
that in the spiral nebula we see a very 
early stage in the process of condensa¬ 
tion. 

Because the spectroscope is able to dis¬ 
tinguish an incandescent gas from a par¬ 
tially condensed starlike mass, it is pos¬ 
sible to ascertain how far congelation has 
progressed and how advanced a star's 
development may be. The relative in¬ 
tensities of spectrum lines render it pos¬ 
sible to estimate the temperature of a 
distant blazing sun, and the width and 
sharpness of the lines the pressure to 
which the vapors of that sun are sub¬ 
jected. 

REVEALS MANY SECRETS. 

Thus it happens that the spectroscopic 
analysis of a star—which even through 
the most powerful telescope must appear 
only as a brilliant point—reveals to us 
secrets of its structure that the astrono¬ 
mer of half a century ago despaired of 
fathoming. 

As a star contracts from the surround¬ 
ing nebulous matter its temperature rises, 
and with this augmented heat occurs a 
change both in the star’s spectrum and 
color. Red-hot iron is not nearly so hot 
as white-hot iron. By observing the 
various changes in tint which the metal 
undergoes the foundryman is able to tell 








28 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


with considerable accuracy its degree of 
heat. A somewhat similar method of 
gauging a star's temperature, and there¬ 
fore its age, is relied upon by the astrono¬ 
mer. Color, then, and spectroscopic an¬ 
alysis enable the astronomer to estimate 
the age of orbs that are only beginning 
to exist as stars, and others whose light 
is fast fading. 

After having coagulated, as it were, 
from a nebulous mass a star assumes a 
color that may be best described as an 
intense bluish white, much like that of 
the electric arc. Stars of that hue are, 
therefore, in their infancy. Then comes 
the white stage, followed by the yellow, 
orange and red, each succeeding hue in¬ 
dicating greater celestial antiquity than 
the last. 

GRADUAL COOLING BEGINS. 

Up to the yellow period the star as it 
contracts grows hotter and hotter. Then 
a gradual cooling takes place. Accom¬ 
panying the changes in color are changes 
in the spectrum of the star—changes that 
indicate a modification in physical struc¬ 
ture. In the bluish white period of a 
star's infancy the characteristic wide lines 
of hydrogen gas predominate in the spec¬ 
trum. As the color changes, the lines of 
calcium, magnesium and iron appear, the 
hydrogen lines gradually becoming thin¬ 
ner and those of calcium broader. 

At what stage in its evolution does a 
star reach its highest temperature? As¬ 
tronomers are not altogether in accord on 
the point. The singular law which para¬ 
doxically holds that, as it cools and con¬ 
tracts, a star grows hotter up to a certain 
point, coupled with Sir William and Lady 
Huggins’ explanation, would seem to 
point to our sun as the hottest type of 


star. To be sure, the sun is not bluish 
white. But the sun's atmosphere has 
much to do with its color. Indeed, if that 
atmosphere were not present the solar 
spectrum would be two and one-half times 
brighter at the blue violet end of the 
spectrum. 

MEASURES HEAT OF STAR. 

Armed with an instrument so delicate 
that it could measure the heat radiated 
from a man's face one-half a mile away, 
Professor Nichols of Yerkes observatory 
has measured the heat sent to us by Vega 
and Arcturus, stars so remote that it 
would take a terrestrial express train, 
traveling at the rate of sixty miles an 
hour, nearly 3,000,000,000 years to reach 
Vega, the nearer, from Arcturus, removed 
from the earth six times the distance of 
Vega, we receive as much light as we 
would from a candle six miles away. 
Such delicate measurements have led to 
the conclusion that Vega is still a young 
star, that it sends us less heat than Arc¬ 
turus—although it is hotter—and that 
Vega, eras hence, will develop into a body 
like our sun. 

After a star has passed the stage which 
our sun has now reached, the metallic ele¬ 
ments in its structure increase in number 
and importance, while the gases dwindle 
away. As the star reaches the red stage 
carbon becomes particularly prominent in 
its spectrum. Ages must still elapse be¬ 
fore the star ceases to be self-luminous 
and then is converted into a gigantic, 
blackened cinder rushing through space. 
Of the development that follows, the plan¬ 
ets above us, and our own earth, afford 
striking examples. The last and most pa¬ 
thetic period is represented by our moon 
—frozen, desolate, dead. 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


29 


SCIENCE AND THE COMMON MAN. 


When the spade of the western stu¬ 
dent uncovers in the deserts of Asia and 
northern Africa the long-hidden ruins of 
a city of antiquity, the world is amazed 
by the wonderful monuments of an ad¬ 
vanced civilization thus disclosed. We 
see that thousands of years ago, in the 
very dawn of history, kings had palaces 
and capitals which rival in splendor the 
palaces and capitals of modern times. 

Artists and engineers were guided 
even then by the highest principles known 
today. The pyramids of Egypt are a 
riddle to our mechanical science. 

On a barren island of the vEgean sea 
we found the Venus of Milo, and we 
set it up as the great model for contem¬ 
porary sculpture. In the wilderness of 
ruins on the Acropolis at Athens twen¬ 
tieth century architecture finds its most 
valuable object lessons. 

The Old Testament is the fountain 
from which we draw our moral philoso¬ 
phy, and it holds besides much of 
our natural science. Homer remains the 
unapproached master of poetry; Phidias 
and Praxiteles of sculpture and Michel 
Angelo and Raphael of painting. 

HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT. 

No one can look upon those glorious 
landmarks of human achievement with¬ 
out admiration for the times which pro¬ 
duced them, and few can look upon them 
without asking themselves where is the 
progress of which we boast? 

If the world really has advanced in 
this age-long interval, where are the cer¬ 
tain signs of that advancement? We do 
not flatter ourselves that great men have 
grown greater since Alexander; that wise 


men have grown wiser since Solomon; 
that heroes are grown more heroic since 
Horatius; that the race has increased in 
beauty since the Venus of Milo and the 
Apollo of Belvidere were modeled 2000 
years ago. Modern progress cannot 
stand these tests. 

Our Christian era cannot out-match 
pagan antiquity in personal distinction, 
in individual greatness. With all the 
thought we have taken we have not added 
one cubit to the human stature. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF INVENTION. 

Some there are who seem to think that 
the grandest achievements since the world 

N 

began are the telephone wire to the butch¬ 
er’s and the trolly car down town. 

Many of these “modern improvements” 
have their deep importance, but only as 
the means to an end. They are not in 
themselves the monuments of our prog¬ 
ress. No archaeologists of the sixtieth 
century will be able to discover a trace 
of them in the ruins of our civilization. 
They are convenient, but not glorious. 

THE COMMON MAN. 

Will not the common man be the glory 
of our age? Of the advance which he has 
made we are certain. It is the greatest 
fact of all history. However sceptical 
we may be of our progress in other direc¬ 
tions we cannot doubt that the world of 
common men has “widen’d with the pro¬ 
cess of the suns.” 

Whatever the pyramids were designed 
to be they are monuments of the labor 
of slaves. All the temples and palaces, 
yes, and the cathedrals of other days, 









so 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


were cemented with the blood and sweat 
of serfs. 

We could not build them now. Men 
are not cheap enough. With an eight- 
hour day and the union scale, one pyra¬ 
mid would have been quite enough for 
an Egyptian king. But between rear¬ 
ing pyramids and rearing men most of 
us would choose to live in an age dis¬ 
tinguished for the latter. 

RULE OF THE FEW. 

Until our own times all the affairs of 
the world were ordered by and for the 
few. The many were silent, and hardly 
more considered than the beasts of bur¬ 
den. 

This was not so much because the 
upper classes were more unfeeling than 
they now are ; but because they regarded 
the masses as condemned to a hopeless 
wretchedness. Laborers bent to their 
tasks from sunrise to long after sunset 
and received a wage merely sufficient for 
their bare existence. 

As late as the year 1858 Rhode Island 
wool spinners worked eighty-four hours a 
week. To work thus six days of four¬ 
teen hours each, with half an hour off at 
noon, it would be necessary to begin at 
6 in the morning and stay until S 130 in 
the evening. 

ELEVATION OF THE COMMON 

MAN. 

If under such circumstances there was 
no faith in the capacity of the common 
man to rise, who can wonder? 

Political economy held out no hope of 
making the condition of the masses bet¬ 
ter and was devoted to “the dismal 
science” of calculating the necessity, 
whenever they became too numerous for 


their masters, of killing them off by war 
and pestilence. Even in our own day. 
just thirty years ago, Professor Cairnes, 
one of the foremost of the British politi¬ 
cal economists, wrote of the working 
people: “The problem of their elevation 
is hopeless. As a body they will not rise 
at all.” 

THE GREAT PROBLEM OF 
SOCIETY. 

When, however, as Emerson recorded, 
“God said 1 am tired of kings,” civiliza¬ 
tion turned to the only untried element 
in its composition, the common man, and 
made him the cornerstone of modern in¬ 
stitutions. 

“The class which has hitherto ruled 
Great Britain,” said John Bright, “has 
failed miserably. It revels in power and 
wealth, while at its feet lies the multitude 
which it has neglected. If a class has 
failed let 11s try the nation. That is our 
faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry 
—let us try the nation.” 

So in this faith the common man has 
been called in to be the master of the state 
and the architect of national destiny. The 
uplifting of the masses has become the 
first problem of society. 

TWO VIEWS OF MAN. 

We have from two distinguished 
sources rear and forward views of man, 
and it is to be regretted that from neither 
standpoint is there much reason why the 
highest of creation as he exists today 
should vaunt his pride. The past robs 
him of part of his glory, and the future 
holds the awful possibility of his reduc¬ 
tion to second place in the animal 
kingdom. 

First, we may travel back a few thou- 





REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


31 


sand years with the famous Assyriologist, 
Professor A. H. Sayce, whose words have 
the weight of authority. In reading the 
facts of the ancient monuments he finds 
that the oldest inhabitants were really 
very gifted persons. Egypt and Babylon 
bad tbeir literary activities, their great 
libraries and tbeir strenuous politics. 
“We have learned many things of late 
years from archaeology/’ he writes; “but 
its chiefest lesson has been that the age of 
Moses, and even the age of Abraham, was 
almost as literary an age as our own.” 
Of course, the writers of those times did 
not have to send return postage on their 
manuscripts—it would take a few bushels 
of 2-cent stamps to get back a hiero¬ 
glyphic slab—but they wrote as persist¬ 
ently and quite as well as the people of 
today. So why should man boast of his 
progress during the thousands of years 
that have come between ? 

But that is not the worst. H. G. Wells, 
who has dipped into the future far as a 
novelist’s eye may see, and who makes it 
pay, delivered before one of the important 
scientific associations of England this 
year a serious and able address on “The 
Discovery of the Future.” Near the end 
he made the remarkable declaration that 
he did not think much of man, and he 
went on to say that if evolution had pro¬ 
duced him from its long labors, starting 
with the lowest form and building up to 
the present biped, there was excuse for 
believing that at some great moment in 
the distant future it would find a higher 
expression of its handiwork. 

So there he is—a clothes-wearer, trol¬ 
ley-chasing animal, whose thoughts are 


little better than they were in Abraham’s 
time, and whose ultimate fate may be the 
monkey’s place at a Newport dinner! 

WOMAN AS THE SUPERIOR OF 

MAN. 

Dr. William T. Belfield says: “In the 
lower organisms the female eats the male. 
A little higher up in the scale of evolu¬ 
tion the female discovers that the male 
can work and supply her with food, while 
she reproduces the species. As a worker 
the male developed certain qualities un¬ 
known to the female—qualities that are 
especially developed in the very highest 
animals, the human race. 

“But the female remains, even in the 
human species, as the conserver of the 
race and the depositor of all the virtues 
that render society possible and that per¬ 
petuate human culture. 

WOMAN’S SUPERIOR QUALITIES. 

“Woman is superior, mentally and 
physically, to man. She endures more 
and is less subject to the diseases caused 
by the ravages of microbes in the human 
system. For every 105 boys born there 
are 100 girls, yet when the period of in¬ 
fancy has elapsed, with all the losses due 
to infantile diseases, the number of fe¬ 
males equals that of the males. The 
longevity of women is greater than that 
of men. 

“To prove the superiority of women 
mentally consider the matter of color¬ 
blindness. Perception of color is the last 
attainment of the human optic; it is the 
most subtle finality of human evolution. 
Out of every 100 women one is afflicted 











32 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


with color-blindness. Out of every ioo and a normal mother will be color-blind, 
men sixteen are afflicted with color-blind- but girls born of the same union will have 
ness. Boys born of a color-blind father a perfect perception of colors. 

HOW OLD IS THE EARTH? 


The time has admittedly gone by for 
attempting to “reconcile the facts of Na¬ 
ture”—to use a recognized phrase—with 
the chronology of the Bible, which makes 
the age of the world rather less than 
6,000 years. 

Indeed, in the Egyptian Rooms at the 
British Museum, the visitor can see for 
himself objects which go back to an au¬ 
thenticated period long antecedent to 
4000 years b. c., and great is the won¬ 
der produced on the minds of those who 
first make their acquaintance. In that 
same department, among the mummies, 
there is what is in many respects the most 
striking of the exhibits in the department 
—the body of a man who belongs to the 
Stone Age. It lies in an accurate repre¬ 
sentation of the peculiarly shaped grave 
in which it was found, and it has been in 
consequence somewhat irreverently nick¬ 
named by the habitues of the Museum 
“the man in the pie-dish.” 

A RELIC OF 5000 B. C. 

The particular interest in that corpse 
—which men, women, and even children 
look upon without the least thought or 
suggestion of the fear or horror usually 
inseparable from death—is that it is un¬ 
questionably the oldest exhibit in the 
Museum; and scientists have been rather 
struck by the fact that the authorities of 
the great institution in Great Russell 
Street have not, so to say, taken the bull 
by the horns, and boldly labelled that ex¬ 
hibit at dating from 5000 b. c. Thus, 


with one single stroke of the pen, Bishop 
Usher’s Biblical chronology is. enlarged 
through centuries unknown to sat¬ 
isfy the requirements of the age of that 
particular specimen. 

How long has the earth been a planet 
capable of supporting not only human 
but all forms of life? 

In an address Lord Kelvin once deliv¬ 
ered on the subject, he gathered together 
the opinions of various scientific men, 
which cannot but be of interest to every 
thinking being. Darwin, in his “Origin 
of Species,” stated that “In all probability 
a far longer period than 300,000,000 
years has elapsed;” while later on, in the 
same book, he wrote: “He who can read 
Sir Charles Lyell’s grand work on the 
‘Principles of Geology,’ which the future 
historian will recognize as having pro¬ 
duced a revolution in natural science, yet 
does not admit how incomprehensibly vast 
have been the past periods of time, may 
at once close this volume.” 

WHEN THE SUN DIES. 

Lord Kelvin himself—then Professor 
William Thomson—over forty years ago, 
made an attempt to calculate the length 
of time during which the sun has been 
burning at its present rate, and in that 
connection he wrote: “It seems, on the 
whole, most probable that the sun has not 
illuminated the earth for 100,000,000 
years, and almost certain that he has not 
done so for 500,000,000 years. As for the 
future, we may say with equal certaintv 





Church with a modern front but whose walls are the oldest in the boundaries of the United States, erected for Christian worship. 





























BOOK OF TFIE TIMES 


34 


that the inhabitants of the earth cannot 
continue to enjoy the light and heat essen¬ 
tial to their life for many million years 
longer, unless new sources, now unknown 
to us, are prepared in the great store¬ 
house of creation.” 

It is a remarkable evidence of the acute 
perception of Lord Kelvin’s mind, as of 
the rare prevision of his intellect, that 
the last words—“unless new sources, 
now unknown to us, are prepared in the 
great storehouse of creation”—should 
have been added to that remarkable sen¬ 
tence. 

As an example of the very extra¬ 
ordinary range of time given to the age 
of the earth, consider the following 
statement from Professor Jukes' “Stu¬ 
dents’ Manual of Geology.” He wrote: 
“Mr. Darwin estimates the time required 
for the denudation of the rocks of the 
Weald of Kent, or the erosion of space 
between the ranges of chalk-hills, known 
as the North and South Downs, at three 
hundred millions of years. It may be 
possible, perhaps, that the estimate is a 
hundred times too great, and that the real 
time elapsed did not exceed three million 
years; but, on the other hand, it is just 
as likely that the time which actually 
elapsed since the first commencement of 
the erosion, till it was nearly as complete 
as it now is, was really a hundred times 
greater than his estimate, or thirty thou¬ 
sand millions of years.” 

* 

96,000,000 YEARS OF LIFE. 

Professor Phillips, in a lecture to the 
University of Cambridge, considered the 
rate of erosion between the ranges of 
the North and South Downs to be rather 
one inch a year, than Darwin’s estimate 


of one inch in a hundred years, so that on 
mere geological grounds he reduced the 
times to about a hundredth. Calculating, 
however, the actual thickness of all the 
known geological strata of the earth, he 
came to the conclusion that life on the 
earth’s surface may probably date back 
to between thirty-eight and ninety-six mil¬ 
lion years. 

Within the last ten years, Professor 
Sollas, of Oxford, working on new prin¬ 
ciples applied to the stratified rocks, re¬ 
duced this time very considerably, for 
he wrote: “So far as I can at present see, 
the lapse of time since the beginning of 
the Cambrian system is probably less than 
17,000,000 years, even when computed 
on an assumption of uniformity, which 
to me seems contradicted by the most 
salient facts of geology.” 

STARTLING FIGURES. 

What are the data, it will naturally be 
asked, on which calculations of this mag¬ 
nitude are made? Among the most im¬ 
portant are the consideration of the un¬ 
derground heat which is constantly being 
conducted out of the earth—in other 
words, the cooling of the earth, the speed 
at which the earth rotates on its axis, 
as well as physical properties of rocks at 
high temperatures. 

The loss of heat by conduction was 
Lord Kelvin’s first argument for limiting 
the age of the earth. He found that if 
the earth had been losing heat in the past 
“with any approach to uniformity for 
20,000 million years, the amount of heat 
lost out of the earth would have been 
about as much as would heat, by 100 deg. 
C., a quantity of ordinary surface rock 
of 100 times the earth’s bulk. This 






REVELATIONS OE SCIENCE 


35 


would be more than enough to melt a 
mass of surface rock equal in bulk to the 
whole earth. No hypothesis as to chemi¬ 
cal action, internal fluidity, effects of pres¬ 
sure at great depth, or possible character 
of substances in the interior of the earth, 
possessing the smallest vestige of proba¬ 
bility, can justify the supposition that the 
earth’s upper crust has remained nearly as 
it is, while from the whole, or from any 
part, of the earth so great a quantity of 
heat has been lost.” 

EARTH ONCE RED-HOT. 

By considering the cooling of the earth, 
and by tracing backwards the process of 
cooling, Lord Kelvin came to “a definite 
estimate of the greatest and least number 
of million years which can possibly have 

PROPHECIES OF SCIENCE 

AND 

Researches by the leading scientists to¬ 
day, taken with the observations of others 
in the past, give indisputable proof that 
the earth is gradually cooling off, from 
the polar extremities toward the equator. 

Eventually the earth will be like the 
moon, which has no water, no atmosphere. 
There are some indications of lichens, 
the lowest form of vegetable life, but 
that is all. The atmosphere of the moon 
is down to absolute zero—400 degrees 
Fahrenheit, minus. Everything is dead 
and frozen there. 

The cause of the cooling off of both the 
moon and the earth unquestionably is the 
diminution of the heat of the sun. 

To be sure, great beat does exist in 
the centre of the earth. We know this 
from the temperature of deep mines and 
boring into the crust in numerous parts 


passed since the surface of the earth was 
everywhere red-hot.” This estimate he 
expressed in the following words: 

“We are very ignorant as to the effects 
of high temperatures in altering the con¬ 
ductivities and specific heats and melting 
temperatures of rocks, and as to their la¬ 
tent heat of fusion. We must, therefore, 
allow very wide limits in such an esti¬ 
mate as I have attempted to make; but 
I think we may, with much probability, 
say that the consolidation cannot have 
taken place less than twenty million years 
ago, or we should now have more under¬ 
ground heat than we actually have; nor 
more than 400 million years ago, or we 
should now have less underground heat 
than we actually have.” 

CONCERNING THE EARTH 
SUN. 

of this country and Europe. But the 
heat of the interior of the earth would 
not, alone, be sufficient to sustain human 
or animal life on the surface. 

Without the sun’s heat we should all be 
dead within three or four days. 

Not only is the earth cooling off, but 
the whole solar system is cooling off as 
well. When the sun no longer gives off 
heat the entire system will be like the 
moon. For years the diameter of the 
sun has been contracting at the rate of 
fifty-six yards a year. That is proved by 
the spectrum. 

But, no matter how much the sun cools, 
the earth will go on just the same— 
though frozen and in darkness—by rea¬ 
son of the law of attraction. The svs- 

j 

tern will still be held in space. 

There are many dark bodies now in 











30 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the system—they have no light, no heat, 
everything on them is dead, yet they hold 
their place in the firmament. The light 
of or heat of the sun has nothing to do 
with the rotation of the planets. They 
will go on forever. 

It has been said by competent students 
of astronomy that the temperature of the 
sun has taken a sudden drop. 

Professor Newcomb estimates the time 
when life will become extinct on the earth 
at from four to five millions of years, 
so there is no need for immediate worry. 

However, suppose there should be a 
drop of, say, io per cent, in the tempera¬ 
ture of the sun. One immediate effect 
would be that Labrador and Canada could 
not be inhabited. The people there would 


be obliged to move down into New Eng¬ 
land. The animals in trees left behind 
would be frozen to death. Only the lower 
forms of vegetable life could exist there. 

As the heat of the sun diminishes so 
the inhabitable zone will grow smaller, 
north and south, until at last only a little 
band will exist around the earth at the 
tropics. This band, too, will in time fade 
away. 

As the earth grows colder and colder 
the inhabitants will doubtless become 
smaller. The small stature of the Esqui¬ 
maux is due to the rigor of the land in 
which they live. The inhabitants of what 
are now the tropics will one day be like 
the Esquimaux. 


END OF THE WORLD PROPHECIES. 


One of the earliest recorded failures 
to bring all creation to an ending crash 
was that of the old Bishop of Hippo. 
When his scheme of annihilation did not 
connect in 395 a. d., the bishop went over 
his figures once more and declared that h£ 
had been a century out of the way. This 
restored his standing as a prophet and 
made it sure that he, at least, would not 
live for a second disappointment. His 
courage in readjusting dates has come 
down the ages without his discretion in 
setting the end far enough ahead to dodge 
the issue. 

In the year 1000 all Christendom went 
into terror and many persons died of 
fright because that year had been set as 
“the time appointed’’ by a Scripture- 
crazed seer. In 1212 great populations 
crowded the Italian shores of the Medi¬ 
terranean waiting for the sea to dry up, 
as had been promised by some crank, so 


that they might walk to Jerusalem for the 
general perishing. In 1335 an Italian 
priest scared half of Europe out of its 
wits by issuing a general warning to put 
on the last bridal robes. And so the dire¬ 
ful foretellings went on until there came 
the plunge of Steiffel in the sixteenth 
century. 

Steiffel was a mathematician and a 
friend of Luther. For twenty years, or 
some such matter, congregations had lis¬ 
tened to him, believing him to be “the 
seventh angel named in the Apocalypse.” 
When he fixed upon Monday, Oct. 3, 
1533, as the day, and 3 o’clock in the 
morning as the hour, for the earth to go 
out of business, be was able to set a great 
crowd of people to moaning and groan¬ 
ing. Previously, at his urging, these peo¬ 
ple had separated themselves from most 
of their worldly goods. As the hour 
passed and destruction came not, the 





REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


37 


lamentations turned to denunciations. 
Herr Steiffel then got such a mobbing 
as has not yet come even to a fashionable 
wedding party in a New York church. 

It would take a tremendous book to 
follow up the late prophets of the world’s 
end. • There are few decades which have 
not contained one or more dates for the 
catastrophe. The Adventists have learned 
caution. They wait now hopefully, ready 
for the finish at “any old time." Yet 
in July, 1889, Mr. Henry A. Chittenden, 
a former New York dry goods merchant, 
one of the believers of ’43-’44, sent out 
bulletins of belief that the very year was 
then upon us. 

An Indiana farmer-prophet says the 
year 2000 is to be that of fate. The Rev. 
A. B. Simpson, noted for his ability to 
lift church debts, favors 1934 a. d. Other 
choice dates are 1915 and 1941. The 
prophets have a large variety of calcula¬ 
tions on hand, and their motto is, “We 
try to please." 

As a rule, predictions of a final catas¬ 
trophe in matter are based on individual 
readings of the Scriptures. Real scien¬ 
tists flirt occasionally—and usually by re¬ 
quest—with the possibilities of planetary 
collisions, consuming solar fires and ex¬ 
haustion of atmosphere. M. Flammarion 
weaves awful contingencies into delight¬ 
fully shivery romances. But there are 
always waiting groups of unfortunates 
ready to take everything seriously. 

Pending other arrangements for their 
personal comfort in the premises, all who 
have an uncertain faith in the stability 


of the earth are urged to consider the 
view presented not long ago to the Ameri¬ 
can Association for the Advancement of 
Science. This gives three billions of 
years before the end. So may we all 
have time to eat, drink and be merry and 
yet preserve a proper diligence. 

IS THE SUN INHABITED? 

There have been many and various 
hypotheses brought forward as to the 
possibility of some of the planets being 
habitable to human beings similar to 
those peopling this earth. But a still 
more startling and ingenious theory has 
lately been published by an American 
astronomer, Mr. Young, who asserts that 
the sun itself may be a land like our own. 
The idea is that the solid globe is sur¬ 
rounded by an atmosphere which is a 
non-conductor of electricity and heat. The 
sun, according to this imaginative theo¬ 
rist, is a centre of electric force. Con¬ 
verging streams of electricity are ever 
flowing to this centre, but on meeting 
with the non-conducting atmosphere be¬ 
come changed into a brilliant discharge, 
which gives the appearance of a solid in¬ 
candescent body. Away in the centre of 
this brilliant crust, and far separated from 
it by the non-conducting atmosphere, lies 
a beautiful planet having all the most de¬ 
sirable characteristics of our own earth. 
But it is only very rarely that we can 
obtain a glimpse of this abode of bliss 
or its strange inhabitants, if they exist. 
Then it is through the aperture or rift 
in the luminous clouds which we call a 
sun-spot. 









33 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 



BabyJon 


RS tyiMRU, 


Dizful 


Hashed 


Quevt 


Site of the oldest city of the world that has yet been unearthed. 


cago University exploring expedition in 
Babylonia. 

The ruins that have been unearthed by 
Prof. E. J. Banks and his one hundred 
and twenty native workmen are identified 
by him as the remains of the city of Adah, 
possibly the oldest city in the world, cer¬ 
tainly one of the group of the oldest cities 


been found that the earliest recorded in¬ 
scription in Babylonia, as yet discovered 
dates back 4,500 years before Christ. 
King Sargon and his son, Naram-Sin, 
are supposed to have reigned in Baby¬ 
lonia about 3,750 years b. c., while Be- 
rosus, who wrote the story of the flood 
of the time of Noah, tells of ten kings and 


DISCOVERY OF THE MOST ANCIENT RUINS. 


The discovery of a lost city of an¬ 
tiquity in the land where tradition has 
located the Garden of Eden in the plain 
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers 
is the first great achievement of the Chi- 


of which there is any knowledge or tradi¬ 
tion. Prof. Banks began work on the 
mounds at Bismya early in 1904. 

A little of the chronology of the Baby¬ 
lonian dynasties is suggested when it has 


















Conference of Japanese priests and teachers of the old and new religions at Tokio. . A 
thousand delegates declared that the war was one waged in the interests of justice, 
humanity, and peace. 















40 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


eight dynasties before his time which had 
ruled in Babylonia more than 432,000 
years! 

As to the work of the present expedi¬ 
tion of the University of Chicago, even 
the average reader of this ancient Baby¬ 
lonian bistory may be at sea on the sub¬ 
ject of the city of Adab. The inscription 
“Ud-Nun-Ki” put upon the bricks under 
the ruins of Bismya seems to have given 
to the archaeologists the idea that Adab 
bas been uncovered. As late as 1900 a. d., 
however, Dr. Radau announced that 
“Ash-Nun-Na-Ki” was one of the un¬ 
known cities of Babylonia. He wrote of 
a certain collection: 

“The old Babylonian tablets in this 
collection belong for the most part to the 
third millennial, b. c., and are dated in 
the years of various kings and patesis of 
Ur and Sbirpurla, with one tablet from 
an unknown city of ‘Ash-Nun-Na-Ki,’ 
and one published before, bearing the 
name of a king of Larsa.” 

BRICKS PROBABLY MARK 
WORLD’S OLDEST CITY. 

Presumably the “Ud-Nun-Ki” referred 
to in the Babylonian cable from the 
orient is the “Ash-Nun-Na-Ki” of the 
bricks marking ancient Adab. As to 
some of the other famous cities of Baby¬ 
lonia, the national epic of the Babyloni¬ 
ans, grouping old myths around a solar 
hero, names only four: Babylon, Erech, 
Nippur, or Calneh, and Surripach or 
Larankha. 

Of these cities the American archaeolo¬ 
gist has taken greatest interest in Nippur 
or Niffer, as it has been called. It was in 
this buried city several years ago that 
the University of Pennsylvania delved to 


the edification of the world. It was here 
that a great temple of Bel was uncovered 
and more than 90,000 documents taken 
from the great library. Here, as at Bis¬ 
mya, another more ancient city was un¬ 
earthed by the expedition from the Key¬ 
stone state university. 

In these first excavations the University 
of Pennsylvania attempted first to dis¬ 
cover the temple. This temple was ac¬ 
credited to the administrations of King 
Sargon and his son, King Naram-Sin. It 
consisted of eight square stages made of 
brick, the basement stage measuring more 
than 200 feet square. A winding path¬ 
way reached to the summit. Digging into 
the mound that marked the temple the 
searchers found that in the centuries fol¬ 
lowing the building of the ancient city the 
drifting sands and debris of the ages had 
covered the Sargon city to a depth of 
thirty-three feet. But when the last stage 
of the temple of Bel was reached the arch¬ 
aeologists went down another twenty- 
eight feet to discover the ruins of “an¬ 
other venerable sanctuary of Babylonian 
culture and civilization, founded centuries 
before the coming of Sargon and Naram- 
Sin.” This expedition discovered that 
the temple originally had been dedicated 
to the god Mul-Lil and afterward dedi¬ 
cated by the Semites to the god Bel. 

HAMPERED BY GOVERNMENT 
AND ARABS. 

Delving into the ruins of these buried 
civilizations the archaeologist has had his 
troubles with the Turkish government 
and with the marauding Arabs, who have 
been desecrators of these templed cities. 
More recently the Arabs have offended 
less in this way. . The last expedition of 






REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


41 


the University of Pennsylvania found the 
Affej Arabs living near the mounds of 
the buried Nippur to be peaceable and dis¬ 
posed to care for their herds of buffa¬ 
loes, sheep, goats, and camels. As the 
inundations of the Euphrates river made 
tilling the ground possible, these tribes¬ 
men tilled the soil, living the half no¬ 
madic, half domiciliary life which the 
ancient records read into the life of Abra¬ 
ham when his people went out of Ur in 
flight from the conquering Elamites. 

As to the inroads of the Arabs into 
these buried treasures, even a Christian 
has been led to say of them in apology: 
“It must be admitted that the ignorance 
and corruption of the Turkish govern¬ 
ment and its officials have offered a 
serious obstacle to the action of the 
museums and encouraged the illicit traf¬ 
fic in antiquities. But, on the other hand, 
the Turk may have decided that he has 
found archaeologists, as a whole, fully as 
unreliable and tricky as himself, and that 
if he is corrupt they are the corrupters. 
In reality this rivalry and these jealousies 
of the museums have been the main rea¬ 
son why no steps have been taken to pre¬ 
vent the wholesale destruction of Baby¬ 
lonian ruins by the antiquity dealers.” 

BABYLONIA—THE CENTER OF 
CIVILIZATION. 

This ancient Babylonia, where after 
6,000 years or more remnants of its civi¬ 
lization are coming to the light, always 
has been of deep interest to the modern 
civilizations. The British museum has a 
tremendous store of Babylonian antiqui¬ 
ties and various public and quasi-public 
institutions in America have taken their 
shares from the mounds that have buried 


these cities of ancient temples beyond all 
save the archaeologist. 

The historian has found much in the 
natural resources of Babylonia to have 
made it the center of Asiatic civilization. 
According to Herodotus, the soil was so 
rich as to return 200 and 300 fold to the 
sower. Wheat made two harvests for 
grain and afterward was considered good 
provender for sheep. Apples and other 
fruits, together with wheat and barley, 
grew wild over the country. 

Beyond these resources of the husband¬ 
man, bricks lay almost ready to hand in 
the soil. Burned or simply dried, these 
bricks were everlasting, and when put into 
walls with the native pitch instead of lime 
they have been proved by the elements 
for almost countless ages. 

ARCHITECTURAL KNOWLEDGE 
OF HIGH ORDER. 

The peoples under which this civiliza¬ 
tion ripened are considered today to be 
the equals of the Hungarians and the 
Turks. The first monarchs, whose monu¬ 
ments may be read from today, had their 
seats in the city of Ur. One of the great¬ 
est buildings and one of the oldest was 
the temple of the moon god, built by a 
prince regarded as the first architect of 
the country. Bitumen was used instead of 
lime, but the buttresses, drains and orna¬ 
mental portions of buildings indicate that 
architectural knowledge had been widely 
developed. 

In the same era with this building in 
Babylonia the cuneiform system of writ¬ 
ing had been fully developed. Signet 
stones were carved with a skill that makes 
wonderment for the twentieth century. In 
the temple of the sun god it is estimated 






42 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


that 30,000,000 bricks were laid in the 
building of it. 

As to the labor at the command of a 
Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar in 
one of his inscriptions, tells of having 
completed the Imgur-Bel in fifteen days. 
In Babylon the temple of Bel stood with 
eight square stages of brick, the base 
stage measuring more than 200 yards 
square. A winding road led to the sum¬ 
mit, upon which stood a colossal figure 
of Bel, forty feet high and of pure gold. 
A table forty feet long was there and 
fifteen feet wide, with other images and 
altars placed along the sides of the tem¬ 
ple, all of pure gold. 

In building in the time of Naram-Sin, 
the walls of the later Nippur were con¬ 
structed of the greatest bricks that ever 
have been uncovered in the Babylonian 
provinces. These bricks were all burned 
and stamped with the name of the mon¬ 
arch. Since the time of Naram-Sin no 
such bricks were turned out in Babylonia. 
Some of the outer walls of Nippur were 
laid with brick that were dried in the 
sun, but which have been proof against 
the inroads of time. In the laying of 
all these hricks a certain pitch that poured 
from subterranean streams was used. 
The substance has been described as rush¬ 
ing from the ground, hot, with a hissing 
noise. In other places the bitumen came 
up with almost cold water, from which it 
was easily separated and prepared by 
heating. 

All about Adab are the relics of a 
most ancient civilization. 

To the east lay the ruins of Shirpuria 
(now Tello) on the canal that 5,000 
years ago connected the Tigris and the 
Euphrates. Here recent explorations 


brought to life a library of 30,000 in¬ 
scribed tablets. To the southwest are 
Erech and Ellasar of Biblical fame, the 
latter the seat of the worship of the sun 
god. 

DISCOVERY ADDS WHOLE CHAP¬ 
TERS TO HISTORY. 

The discovery of the city of Adab is 
an almost marvelous sequel to the find¬ 
ing of the code of King Khammurabi. It 
forms a new link in a chain of remarkable 
revelations of long hidden secrets of the 
past, its unfolding due to the activity 
and intelligence which have marked the 
work of exploration of recent years in 
Babylonia. It is a record of achieve¬ 
ments in a sequence that suggests the fic¬ 
tions of fable more than the chronicles of 
historic fact. 

M. de Morgan, a French explorer, late 
in the tall of 1901, began work at the 
site of ancient Susa, the capital of the 
kingdom of the Elamites. He was led 
to this place by inscriptions found in the 
ruins of Babylon, from which he learned 
that many of the most important monu¬ 
ments of the Babylonian kings had been 
carried off as trophies of war by the 
Elamite kings to their capital city. He 
soon discovered the stele of Naram-Sin, 
who was King of Nippur in 3800 b. c., 
and shortly afterward startled the world 
with the news that he had found the great 
tablet on which King Khammurabi had 
inscribed his code of laws. 

Khammurabi (the King Amraphal of 
Genesis xiv. 1) reigned in 2400 b. c., 
nearly 1,800 years before the time when 
Daniel read the mysterious handwriting 
on the wall at King Belshazzar’s feast in 
Nebuchadnezzar’s palace at Babylon, 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


43 


when Cyrus and his Persians captured 
the imperial city. 

In the introduction to his code Kham- 
murabi extols his own achievements as 
the first king who ruled at Babylon, 
though he was the sixth of the first 
dynasty of the monarchs of Babylonia. 
Among his titles to fame he declares he 
was “the King who lent life to Adah,’ 
from which it is understood that Adab 
was one of the towns looted and wrecked 
by the Elamites in their early raids, and 
that Khammurabi restored the ancient 
city. 

The third link in this wonderfully 
connected chain of discoveries is Adab. 
That it should have lain hidden and for¬ 
gotten for unknown centuries, and now 
be found within the brief period of two 
years after the discovery of the ancient 
monument that heralded it to the world 
as one of the great cities of antiquity, 
is itself sufficient to excite the deepest 
interest in its discovery. 

From the inscriptions on the bricks of 
the buildings first uncovered Prof. Banks 
learned that the ruined city was named 
Udnunki. But, as was the case at Nip¬ 
pur, the city was built upon the ruins of 
another city, and that still upon another. 
Deep down in the soil beneath the ruins 
were other ruins centuries older than 
those above them, and from these Ud¬ 
nunki was identified also as the Adab 
that far antedated the days of Abraham. 
Adab was old when Babylon was in its 
infancy. It was, like Ur of the Chal¬ 
deans, a city of the fabled olden times, 
when Khammurabi began his reign in 
Babylon 2,400 years before the birth of 
Christ, 


OLDEST STATUE IN THE WORLD. 

The oldest known statue in the world, 
a fabulously valuable marble image of 
Daddu, founder of the first dynasty of 
Babylonian kings, has been unearthed in 
Adab, the most ancient of earth's cities, 
by the University of Chicago Babylonian 
excavation expedition. Experts in As- 
syriology and antiquities say the statue 
antedates by centuries the rarest works in 
the world's greatest museums, and place 
its value far above that of the best Greek 
masterpieces, worth many times their 
weight in gold. Professor Harper re¬ 
gards it as one of the most important 
scientific finds of the age, ranking with 
the discovery by his expedition of Adab, 
mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi. 
The statue may be brought to Chicago. 
Dr. Banks, the famous Assyriologist and 
Egyptologist, who is in charge of Dr. 
Harper’s party of excavators, in inform¬ 
ing the head of the expedition of the ex¬ 
istence of the statute, says it was discov¬ 
ered by superstitious Arab workmen, 
who, noting a white projection in the 
bank of a trench, fled from the spot in 
terror. Dr. Banks later dug the statue 
from the ground with his hands, only to 
find the head missing. After three weeks 
the head was found in another part of 
the ditch. An inscription on the right 
arm of the statue was translated as fol¬ 
lows : 

TEMPLE ESHAR 
KING DADDU, 

KING OF UDNUNKI (Adab). 

Information gathered later by Dr. 
Banks revealed the fact that King Daddu 
lived centuries before the City of Naram- 








BOOK OF THE TIMES 


44 


Sin, which flourished in 375 ° B - c. He 
places its date at 4000 b. c. “The statue 
is 78 centimeters high and 81 centimeters 
around the bottom of the skirt," writes 
Dr. Banks. “The upper part of the body 
is entirely naked and the lower part is 
clothed in an embroidered skirt of six 
folds, held up by a band and fastened be¬ 


hind. The back and shoulders are grace¬ 
fully formed. The arms at the elbows are 
free from the body, and the hands are 
clasped at the waist; the eyes and eye¬ 
brows are now hollows, in which ivory 
or precious stones were set. This is by 
far the most perfect and graceful statue 
yet found in Babylonia.” 


THE AGE OF MANKIND. 


OLDER THAN THE RECORDS. 

Civilized man occupied the earth at a 
much earlier period than most people 
imagine. So far as the question of time 
is concerned, it deserves notice that not 
merely geology, but almost every form of 
inquiry into the past throws further back 
the limits usually assigned. 

Egypt, for instance, is continually fur¬ 
nishing fresh proofs of the antiquity of 
civilization. Prof. Petrie expounded at 
Owens College, Manchester, England, a 
few clays ago the results of recent ex¬ 
plorations at Abydos, in upper Egypt, 
from which it appears that the ruins at 
that one spot tell a continuous story that 
carries us back to 5000 b. c. Abydos 
was the first capital of Egypt and re¬ 
mained for 45 centuries the religious 
centre, the Canterbury of the land, and 
there the Egyptian exploration fund has 
unearthed the remains of “ten successive 
temples, one over the other.” From the 
age of the first temple a group of about 
200 objects has been found which throws 
surprising light on the civilization of the 
first dynasty. A part of a large glazed 
pottery vase of Mena, the first king of 
die first dynasty, about 4700 b. c., 
showed “that even then they were mak¬ 
ing - glaze on a considerable scale and 

O O 


also inlaying it with a second color. The 
ivory carving was astonishingly fine, a 
figure of a king showing a subtlety and 
power of expression as good as any work 
of later ages.” 

At about 4000 b. c. an ivory statuette 
of Cheops, the builder of the great pyra¬ 
mids was found, the only known portrait 
of him. Making every possible allowance 
for the marvelous rapidity of art develop¬ 
ment, must not many thousands of years 
have rolled over between the pristine 
dwellers in the Nile valley and the men 
who carved ivory statuettes and manufac¬ 
tured glazed work inlaid with second col¬ 
ors ? It is a long, long march from flint 
implements to the solemn temple ivory 
statuettes and human portraits. 

THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF 
LIFE ON EARTH. 

The bacillus of today that can with¬ 
stand 130 degrees Celsius of cold may 
be capable of existence in the ever-fro¬ 
zen space of the universe even now—the 
“universe cold” that rules between the 
planets, between the solar systems and 
that lies between us and the moon, be¬ 
tween us and Mars, and between the sun 
and its red double star. Such a bacillus 
gives point to the theory of Humboldt 










V?. 


High speed tourist autocar. 














46 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


—that life never began on earth through 
birth on earth, but that it reached this 
planet through some agency that brought 
it out of the universe in the right moment 
when the cooling earth offered the proper 
conditions. 

He suggested that such an agency 
might have been a meteoric stone, car¬ 
rying the primeval germs of life in a 
fissure. 

We need not fall back on the meteoric 
stone. We have it in the presence of 
bacilli that can bear ioo degrees Cel¬ 
sius and more of cold. 

We might ask if the earth in its dar¬ 
ing flight around the sun does not at 
times cut through cosmic swarms of 
bacilli as it cuts through meteoric 
swarms? If the astronomers of the mid¬ 
dle ages, who used to hold that all great 
comets brought pestilences to the earth, 
had been in possession of our present 
knowledge of bacilli, they might well 
have been led to imagine that the comet's 
tail carried the bacilli of the pest and 
rained them down on the unlucky earth. 

These are dreams. Yet it is undeniable 
that there is something weird about the 
properties of bacilli, something that points 
at one and the same time to the oldest 
existence on earth and to the last living 
thing—man. 

When man appeared first on the earth 
in times primeval he was literally sub¬ 
merged in representatives of the realm of 
the singled-celled creatures. Every breath, 
every drop of water was filled with them. 
As a few scattered peaks stick out of 
abysmal seas, so the few sparse types 
of true plants and animals appeared in 
the mist of unicells. 

From the beginning the mass of these 


unicells met man not as enemies, but as 
friends—that is, they did their work with¬ 
out considering man, but in a direction 
that served him. When he became an 
agriculturist this benefit increased im¬ 
measurably, for the bacteria loosened his 
earth, helped his plants and ruled mys¬ 
teriously while he plowed and dug. 

Now, in gray time primeval, long, long 
before man or the thing that was to be¬ 
come man, “life" must have appeared 
for the first time; in the Cambrian epoch, 
in whose deepest layers we perceive the 
first fossil remains of the earth’s story. 

All theories unite on the one that the 
oldest living things of that time were uni¬ 
cells. Whether or not they were unicells 
like our present bacteria is of compara¬ 
tively little importance. The main thing 
is that they were single-celled things. 

THE TRIUMPH OF THE CELL. 

And it is established, too, how the 
gathering of certain unicells into a group 
first produced the living thing with sep¬ 
arate functions—the cell community. 

The cell community was the first great 
progress, the first great development in 
the measureless space of time. 

And through many strange fortunes, 
by many wild and mysterious ways, 
passing through countless shapes, fear¬ 
ful, horrible and weird, man, the height 
of development, emerged from that dim, 
forgotten first gathering of shapeless 
clumps—man, with the centralizing brain 
that the cell-creature plant does not 
possess at all, that the cell-creature beast 
has in only faulty development. 

And yet this human brain is nothing 
other than a cell-community in the cell- 
community man. 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


47 


MEASURING THE EARTH. 


NECESSARY DELICATE SCIEN¬ 
TIFIC OPERATIONS. 

The science of geodesy is making 
rapid strides along the line of accuracy, 
and there is not much left to be perfected 
in the way of method. The all-important 
problem of modern, as well as ancient 
goedesy, of course, is the measurement of 
the dimensions of the earth, which enters 
into all practical work of surveying, navi¬ 
gation and terrestrial physics. The In¬ 


measuring medium. The latest refine¬ 
ment in the bar method is that originated 
by the United States Coast and 
Geodetic Survey, using a single bar im¬ 
mersed in melting ice, the containing 
trough being carried on a suitable car 
upon a temporary track. Later still, M. 
Guillaume discovered an alloy of 64 per 
cent steel and 36 per cent nickel possesses 
an exceedingly low coefficient of expan¬ 
sion, and, consequently, offers the best 



A two-ton commercial automobile van. 


ternational Geodetic Association several 
years ago undertook tbe problem, the 
different nations having agreed to con¬ 
tribute their share towards an accurate 
determination. The determination was 
undertaken in Ecuador, in 1901, and ex¬ 
tended from the Colombian to the Peru¬ 
vian frontier, and every possible refine¬ 
ment to attain tbe maximum degree of 
accuracy was adopted. The greatest dif¬ 
ficulty is to secure an accurate base line, 
which is complicated by so apparently 
trivial a thing as the expansion of the 


medium for accurate base line measure¬ 
ments. This alloy is known as “invar,” 
and is usually employed in the form of a 
wire supported by tripods and stretched 
by a definite weight. A very valuable 
piece of work on the Island of Spitzbergen 
was completed with the use of this al¬ 
loyed wire. 

Even the infinitesimal variation in the 
force of gravity at different portions of 
the earth is not too insignificant to be 
disregarded and must be determine'd and 
a correction applied. This delicate de- 

























48 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


termination is made by observing the pres- reading, the difference, if any, being con- 
sure of the atmosphere by the determi- sidered due to a variation in the action 
nation of the boiling point of water, and of the force of gravity upon the mercury, 
comparing the same with the barometric 

A HOLE IN THE EARTH. 


Prof. Parsons estimates that to sink 
a shaft twelve miles deep would cost 
$25,000,000, and that it would require 
eighty-five years to accomplish it. This 
shaft, cut down into the earth, would 
represent the equivalent of a hole one 
foot deep in a mass 666 feet thick. It 
would solve many questions that the 
scientific knowledge of the world has left 
unanswered, yet it would investigate only 
the crust and leave thousands of miles 
of the interior mass still untouched. 

No man has gone down into the earth's 
interior beyond the distance of one mile 
and lived to tell the story. The deepest 
boring in the “crust” of the planet is 
5,000 feet—less than one four-thou¬ 
sandths of the distance to the centre of 
the globe. 

The earth’s interior is a vast unknown, 
beside which, in the realm of mystery the 
heavens are an open book. The most dar¬ 
ing explorer seeking new fields of heroism 
in unraveling the mysteries of nature has 
halted even before he could plan to sur¬ 
mount the obstacles that lie in the path¬ 
way of the secrets of the earth’s mass. 

TO TEST FORCE OF GRAVITY. 

The amount of compression at the 
globe’s center should, to some extent at 
least, define the character of the mass of 
which it is formed. 

Within the Washington monument, 
which is 550 feet high, is to be stretched 


a wire 500 feet long, on the free end of 
which will be hung heavy weights. Sur¬ 
vey experts, who will conduct the experi¬ 
ments, hope by this means to gain a 
knowledge of the force of gravity at 
equal distance toward the centre of the 
earth. 

It is argued that the great mass of the 
interior of the earth is solid. Against 
the contention that the planet, under a 
crust twenty-five miles thick, is a mass 
of fiery liquid is arrayed the fact of the 
known density of the globe. That den¬ 
sity in the earth’s entirety is about 5.5 
times the density of the water that cov¬ 
ers three-quarters of the surface. 

SIR WILLIAM THOMPSON’S 
THEORY. 

The assumption of a comparatively 
thin crust requires, according to Sir Will¬ 
iam Thompson, that this crust should 
have a rigidity possessed by no known 
substance. The sun exerts such a strain 
upon the substance of the earth that the 
planet could not maintain its shape as 
it does, he maintains, unless the supposed 
crust were at least 2,000 or 2.500 miles 
in thickness. 

There is a gradual increase in the tem¬ 
perature while penetrating the surface of 
the crust. This increase in some locali¬ 
ties is as rapid as one degree for each 
fifty-six feet of descent; in others one de¬ 
gree for seventy-five to eighty-five feet. 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


49 


In the Comstock silver mines of Ne¬ 
vada, at a depth of 3,065 feet, water has 
a temperature of 170 degrees, Fahrenheit. 
The deepest excavations in the earth are 
at the Calumet and Hecla copper mines 
in Michigan, where the longest perpen¬ 
dicular shaft goes down 4,900 feet, while 
one of the standing shafts is more than 
8,000 feet in length. 

HEAT WOULD RENDER TOOLS 
USELESS. 

There are in these mines 250 miles of 
lateral galleries. Colossal engines are re¬ 
quired to ventilate the immense subter¬ 
ranean city and to keep the temperature 
endurable in the lower levels. All deep 
mine borings prove how stupendously 
difficult would be the task of descending 
below the mile level. 

At the lowest rate of increase in the 
temperature in penetrating the earth, the 
heat at the depth suggested by Mr. Par¬ 
sons, twelve miles down, would be 800 de¬ 
grees, Fahrenheit. This heat, though far 
from the fusing point of wrought iron 
(3,280 degrees), would render the use 
of tools, even if the lower borings of the 
shaft were constructed as they are in oil 
wells, a difficult process. It would defy 
the most colossal scheme of artificial re¬ 
frigeration to render such depths avail¬ 
able for entrance by human beings. 

No considerations of commercial bene¬ 
fit enter into the plans of Mr. Parsons in 
suggesting the twelve mile boring into 
the crust of the earth. It is a scheme 


purely in the interest of scientific knowl¬ 
edge. 


DEEPEST BORINGS IN THE 
EARTH’S CRUST. 



Scientific boring to discover the condition of 
the earth’s crust. 


Calumet and Hecla copper mine 


(Michigan) .4,900 

Comstock silver mine (Nevada) 

with 300 miles of galleries.3,065 

Viviers Reunis (Belgium) mine. .3,489 

South Wales iron mine .2,280 

Oil wells, Western Pennsylvania.. 1.200 
Louisville (Ky.) artesian well.... 2,086 
Greuelle (France) well.1,797 




























50 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


DISTANCE OF ONE OF THE FIXED STARS. 


Being asked to show a distinguished 
visitor in one of the great astronomical 
observatories one of the farthest stars, 
the astronomer fixed his great telescope 
on a star that looked no bigger than a 
pin point—a small, bright star, shining 
with a white and steady light. 

“That little star,” he said, “is so far 
away that it takes its light 3,500,000 
years to reach us. The beam from it that 
you now see was given forth 3,500,000 
years ago. What, I wonder, was the 
world like then? 

IS MAN THE CENTRE 

Dr. A. R. Wallace considered the 
greatest naturalist after Darwin, and a 
contemporaneous discoverer of evolution 
with him, believes that the earth was spe¬ 
cially created with direct reference to the 
development of man. His theories pub¬ 
lished in a book are summarized as fol¬ 
lows : 

1. The stellar universe forms one 
connected whole of finite and determin¬ 
able extent. 

2. The solar system is situated in the 
plane of the Milky Way, and not far from 
its middle point. The earth is, therefore, 
nearly at the centre of the stellar uni¬ 
verse. 

3. The universe consists throughout 
of the same kinds of matter, and is sub¬ 
jected to the same physical and chemical 
laws. 

So much he takes to be certain; while 
three further propositions have “enor¬ 
mous probabilities in their favor.” These 
are: 


“And do you know how fast these 
star beams travel ? They travel at the 
rate of 12,000,000 miles a minute. Think 
of it—12,000,000 miles multiplied by 
3,500,000 years reduced to minutes—that 
is the distance from the star to us. 

“Here is a strange fact. The star may 
have been annihilated 2,500,000 years 
ago, but we, in that case, would know 
nothing of its annihilation till 1,000,000 
years from now, for whatever should 
happen on this star would take 3,500,000 
years to reach us. 

OF THE UNIVERSE? 

4. No other planet in the solar sys¬ 
tem besides the earth is inhabited or hab¬ 
itable. 

5. The probabilities are almost as 
great against any sun besides our own 
being attended by inhabited planets. 

6. The nearly central position of our 
sun is probably permanent, and has been 
specially favorable, perhaps absolutely es¬ 
sential, to life-development on the earth. 

The great and definite” outcome of 
his reasoning is, then, “that man, the 
culmination of conscious organic life, has 
been developed here only in the whole 
vast material universe we see around us.” 
Nor does he admit any incongruity in the 
idea that our race, “the unique and su¬ 
preme product of this vast universe,” 
was its final cause—the purpose for which 
it was designed. Man is the superlative 
of nature. 

A noted reviewer of this book says: 
“Unquestionably the trend of modern re- 






Example of heavy automobile truck wagons, 



























52 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


search is to encourage the opinion that if for the express purpose of harboring 
the solar system is set apart among the in safety the frail craft bearing the bur- 
stars and the earth among the planets, as then of life.” 


JAVA MAY HAVE THE MISSING LINK. 


SPECIES OF MONKEY FOUND 
WHOSE HABITS CLOSELY 
RESEMBLE THOSE 
OF MEN. 

A French scientific journal announces 
that a new animal, much resembling a 
monkey, but much nearer in habits and 
culture to man, has been discovered in 
Java. 

A merchant named Van Beuren hap¬ 
pened to get lost in a forest and was 
obliged to spend the night under a tree, 
on which he discovered a giant nest with 
a circular opening measuring eighteen 
inches in diameter. This nest was oc¬ 
cupied by a family of animals much re¬ 
sembling the ordinary monkeys, with the 
difference that their heads were covered 
with long brown hair. 

OBSERVE ANIMALS FOR 
MONTHS. 

After his return to civilization M. Van 
Beuren told an American scientist, Dr. 
Werdehouse, of his discovery and they 


returned together to the spot, where they 
spent several months studying the habits 
of the animals. 

Contrary to the custom of monkeys, 
these animals, which the natives call 
“asch perrizlz,” are very fond of bathing, 
and the females usually adorn their necks 
with collars made of fruit kernels. 

MOTHERS SING TO THEIR 
YOUNG. 

They take good care of their little ones, 
but seem to be little prolific and near ex¬ 
tinction. The mothers rock their little 
ones, singing like human beings in an 
articulate language of very few words. 
They eat fruits, birds’ eggs and fishes and 
like to be near a fire, although unable 
to light one. 

Dr. Werdehouse, who classified these 
animals as pithecanthropes, has been un¬ 
able to capture any of them and had not 
the heart to kill one even in the interest 
of science. A scientific expedition has 
been formed to explore the island and 
capture one of the animals if possible. 


THE UNSOLVED MYSTERY OF ENERGY. 


We have heard many views expressed 
with regard to the emanations from 
radium, and to the other curious N-rays 
which are believed to be emitted from 
living bodies, and from inanimate objects 
as well. So far, indeed, from the interest 
in investigations into the ultimate consti¬ 
tution of matter declining, the world at 
large appears to look with eagerness for 
each new revelation of science which may 


bring us nearer to “the causes of things.” 

One of the greatest and widest of gen¬ 
eralizations is that included under the 
term of the conservation of energy. An 
allied law, so to speak, is that known 
as the correlation of forces. They teach 
us that each manifestation of force or 
energy is accompanied by a correspond¬ 
ing loss on the part of the object or body 
which acts or operates, and they also in- 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


53 


elude the view that all kinds of energy 
are probably only modifications of one 
form thereof, so that, as is well known, 
one display of force can be converted into 
an equivalent of another form of energy. 

Out of friction we can get heat, and 
out of heat we can get light. If the elec¬ 
trical machine is set in motion hy the 
energy locked up in the coal which feeds 
the steam engine that drives it, the re¬ 
sulting electric light can be thus referred 
back to the forces of the sun liberated 
aeons ago in the earth’s history and 
through whose influence the old plants 
of the coal period ripened and grew. 
What we learn thus is a new reading of 
the adage, “From nothing comes noth¬ 
ing.” To get power we must pay for it 
in expanding energy of one kind or an¬ 
other. 

Now, radium was believed to present 
an exception to this universal law which 
operates as truly in the case of a man’s 
muscles as in the case of the coal-fed en¬ 
gine. Food is his fuel, which renders 
him capable of performing the work his 
brain or his hands find to- do. 

If radium appeared to give forth ema¬ 
nations and to disperse force without ap¬ 
parent exhaustion and without calling 
upon some outward source for a fresh 
supply of energy, it assuredly stood 
unique as a terrestrial phenomenon. This 
is precisely where the mystery of radium 
intervened. Yet there are not wanting 
signs by way of showing that all our 
philosophers are not content to assume the 
existence of an exception to a universal 
law. 

The case of radium and its emanations 


presents an instance which, on the theory 
of the conservation of energy, presents 
so striking an exception that the philo¬ 
sophic mind prefers to fall back on the 
view that this substance utilizes some 
form of energy from without than to as¬ 
sume that it represents in itself a store 
of never-failing kind. 

If radium does wear out in time, that 
fact would settle the whole question. For 
then we should have merely to fall back 
on the theory that in place of making 
force out of nothing, or even of utilizing 
some outside source of supply, it repre¬ 
sents a form of matter which can store 
up acquired energy in a very remarkable 
fashion. 

\\ e know the matter which lives, but 
we are ignorant of the conditions under 
which it acquires its vitality. It feeds, 
grows, and multiplies, but these vital 
events are the result and not the cause of 
its living. Even when we descend to 
life's groundlings, we may feel as power¬ 
less to explain the nature of the vitality 
which animates a blob of simple pro¬ 
toplasm as our science is inadequate to 
determine the cause of the life actions of 
man. 

Ihe two fields of inquiry, physical and 
vital, may touch at certain points, but 
the living domain is separated as regards 
its causation from the purely non-living 
area of a Rubicon which at present no 
thought can cross. “What is life?” is a 
question all the ages have asked, and it 
remains still unanswered. Radium, with 
all its mystery, is a simple thing com¬ 
pared with the innate nature of the ani¬ 
malcule in the water-drop. 









54 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


LUMINIFEROUS ETHER. 


Certain facts connected with the propa¬ 
gation of light go far to establish the 
belief in the existence of a mysterious, 
colorless, odorless, invisible, and incon¬ 
ceivably rarefied substance called the 
luminiferous ether which fills all space, 
even the interstices between the molecules 
of the most dense bodies, for the mole¬ 
cules of any body, however dense it may 
be, are not in absolute contact, but sep¬ 
arated from one another by an infinitesi¬ 
mally small space which allows slight mo¬ 
tion among the molecules. Sound and 
light are similar as regards their mode 
of production and propagation; the 
former by waves of undulations of the 
air which impinge on the drum of the ear 
and thence transmitted by the aural 
mechanism through the auditory nerve to 
that portion of the brain which takes 
cognizance of this kind of motion; the 
latter also by waves or undulations in the 
ether similar to those which produce 
sound, but in the case of light, the mag¬ 
nitude of the waves is infinitely less and 
the velocity infinitely greater. 

In the electric storm the waves of ether 
convey to our eyes the lightning flash, 
while the waves of air bring us the sound 
of the thunder. If the ether did not ex¬ 
ist light could not be propagated from 
a luminous body, and the universe would 
be in profound darkness, for it is not con¬ 
ceivable that waves of light could be 
transmitted through an absolutely empty 
space. This mysterious body holds the 
vast universe in one compact mass. It is 
the medium of the most powerful and 
terrible of elementary forces. 

It cannot be destroyed, exhausted, or 


changed in any respect. We can no more 
exhaust the ether from a given space than 
we can create a world. The length of 
the waves of ether determine the color 
of light. Thus, in the extreme red rays 
of the solar spectrum there are 37,640 in 
one inch, and 442,000,000,000,000 (four 
hundred and forty-two trillions) waves 
pass a given fixed point in one second 
of time, while in the extreme violet rays 
of the spectrum there are 59,750 waves 
to the inch, and seven hundred and two 
trillions pass in a second. The inter¬ 
mediate colors, orange, yellow, green, 
blue and indigo, have values between 
these extremes. They all move with 
the same absolute velocity, viz., at the 
rate of 186,330 miles per second, but with 
different wave lengths. There are, how¬ 
ever, waves beyond the extreme red, 
whose length is too long for our eye to 
take cognizance of them. These are the 
heat rays, and appear dark for the reason 
just given. So also there are waves be¬ 
yond the extreme violet which are invis¬ 
ible because their wave length is too 
short. These constitute the chemical 
waves, which are mainly employed in 
photography. 

The existence of the ether has enabled 
astronomers to solve one of the most 
astounding problems ever undertaken by 
man, viz., the determination of the actual 
motion of the so-called fixed stars in the 
line of sight—that is to say, their motion 
either toward or from us. This is one 
of the grandest astronomical achieve¬ 
ments of the nineteenth century. 

Wireless telegraphy would be an im¬ 
possibility were it not for the existence 





REVELATIONS OE SCIENCE 


55 


of ether. The waves or undulations pro¬ 
duced in the ether by electrical impulse 
may not only travel around the world but 
through it and also may be propagated 
to the planets and stars. If there are in- 


It is not possible to predict what may 
be accomplished in this line of research 
when we become better acquainted with 
the properties of the luminiferous ether. 
It no doubt plays an important part in 



Freak in locomotion: A umcycle driven by a gasoline motor. 


habitants on Mars, for instance, it would 
be quite possible to communicate with 
them or at least to exchange signals, pro¬ 
vided they have a knowledge of the ex¬ 
istence and properties of the ether and 
have the proper instruments for receiv¬ 
ing the signals. 


the production of electricity which is even 
now not well understood. As ozone is 
a condensation of oxygen, so likewise 
electricity may be a condensation of the 
ether by some means which has hitherto 
eluded human research. 












56 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ARE METALS ALIVE? 


So wonderful are recent discoveries in 
chemistry and physics that it will not be 
surprising if one day it be found that 
what we call dead matter is really alive. 

Professor Vasu, experimenting at the 
Faraday Laboratory, in London, has 
gone far towards proving that tin, plati¬ 
num, and other metals, are quite as much 
alive, though in a different way, as hu¬ 
man muscles. 

One of the stock experiments shown 
to every medical student is one which 
proves that muscle contracts when it is 
pinched, or electrified, or excited in any 
other way. A little piece of muscle is 
cut from a recently dead frog. One ex¬ 
tremity is attached to a fixed point, and 
the other to the end of a pivoted lever. 
At the free end of the lever is a writing 
apparatus, which rests against a moving 
piece of paper. 

MUSCLE AND METAL. 

When the muscle is pinched it con¬ 
tracts, and moves the lever, so that an 
upward line is marked on the paper. 
Then, as the muscle lengthens again, a 
downward line is drawn. This happens 
each time that the muscle is stimulated, 
and the result is a diagram of wavy lines 
upon the paper. 

The muscle, it may be said, remains 
alive for a considerable time after the 
animal has died—very much longer in 
the case of a frog than of a warm-blooded 
animal. So long as it is alive it can 
contract; so soon as it dies it ceases to 
contract. This is the reason why the 
electrical test is such an infallible test 
of death, and prevents any danger of 
people being buried alive. 


Of course, tin and platinum cannot b^ 
made to contract by pinching. There¬ 
fore, Mr. Vasu uses a slightly different 
experiment. 

If the ends of the piece of muscle be 
connected with a galvanometer, which is 
somewhat like a mariner’s compass, it is 
found that when the muscle is pinched, 
or tapped, or twisted, it produces an elec¬ 
tric current. Both ends produce equal 
currents, and so the needle of the galva¬ 
nometer is not moved. But if one end be 
injured by nitric acid or by burning, it 
produces no electricity. The other end 
will, therefore, have things all its own 
way, and the electric current which it 
sends forth when pinched moves the 
needle. 

TIRED PLATINUM. 

Vegetable substances—the stalk of a 
leaf, for instance—act in exactly the 
same way. 

But the surprising thing is that a piece 
of tin wire will give the selfsame results. 

If that were all, we would not have 
much reason for surmising that metals 
may be living things. But Mr. Vasu has 
performed a long series of curious ex¬ 
periments. 

Muscle, as we all know, grows tired 
from use. Just as the muscles of the 
arm will refuse to lift a dumb-bell after 
a certain number of times, so will the 
little experimental strip of muscle refuse 
to give electric currents. After the first 
few stimuli, it will move the needle ot 
the galvanometer less and less, until it 
ceases to move it altogether. But the 
very same thing happens with a strip of 




Fig. No. i. Mechanical construction of eight-horsepower automobile. 



Figure No. 2. Same machine in upright position. 


A, engine crankcase 

A1 Al, steel cables for foot brake 

B, clutch case with inspection lid 
Bl, rear brake levers 

C, gear case with inspection hole 
Cl Cl, rear brakeshafts 

D, propeller-shaft case (upper part), 
exhaust box (lower part) 

D1 Dl, rear brake bands 

E, bevel gear case and rear axle case 

in two half castings 
El, swivel bar for front part of .body 
E, ex haust port of cylinder 
pi pi f compression rods for front axle 
G, inlet connection of cylinder 


Gl, cross connecting rod for steering 
levers 

II, carburetter of Rover automatic type 

III, exhaust pipe from engine to for¬ 
ward part of exhaust box 

I, aluminium bracket, to make up dash 

and support various parts 
II, exhaust pipe from rear part of ex¬ 
haust box to the atmosphere 

J, foot lever to operate the cams on 

the engine half-time shaft 
Jl Jl, brackets to carry the rear body 
springs and brake bracket 
Kl, connecting rod to striker S (from 
shaft F,, fig. 5) from lower lever 
operated by P 


L, foot lever for rear brakes D,D, 

M, foot lever for clutch 

N, quadrant for change speed gear 

O, steering stem 

P, gear changing lever 

Q, R, throttle and ignition control 

discs operating Bowden wire 

mechanism 

T, radiator 

U, high speed fan 

V, fan belt 

W, pump case 

X XI, wire steering connections 

Y, cross spring for front part of 

chassis 

Z, contact maker 

























58 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


platinum—that is to say, platinum suffers 
from fatigue just like muscle. 

But if in lifting the dumb-bell a good 
rest is taken between each two efforts, 
then one’s arm does not grow tired. So 
with the little strand of muscle. If the 
pinches are given at considerable inter¬ 
vals, it will continue moving the needle 
equal distances. And so also with the 
strip of platinum. 

Nerve, on the other hand, never gets 
tired like muscle, and there are metals 
which resemble nerve in this respect. Tin 
was believed to be indefatigable. But 
Professor Vasu found that when he kept 
it going for several days it gave in at 
length. 

Strange as it is to find metals sub¬ 
ject to fatigue, it is still more strange to 
find that they are influenced by chemicals 
very much like ourselves. They can be 
stimulated, depressed, and even poisoned. 

WIRE WHICH WRITES. 

In experimenting with the strip of 
nerve or muscle or leaf-stalk, if some 
chloroform be applied to it it will cease 
to give an electric current, but after a 
time it will recover ; if the poison vera- 
trine be applied the muscle will recover, 
but not for a very long time; if nitric 
or sulphuric acid be applied it will never 
recover. 

Compare these facts with what occurs 
in a piece of tin or platinum wire. 

First, the piece of wire is placed in 
pure water, and is then excited by a tap 
or two or a twist. It gives forth an 
electric current, and a line of a certain 
height is drawn by the writing apparatus. 

Then a little bicarbonate of soda is 
dissolved in the water. This chemical 


has quite a stimulating effect on the tin 
wire, and so the electric current produced 
is stronger, and the line on the paper be¬ 
comes longer. 

Next a depressant is tried, and the 
same drug which depresses our own nerv¬ 
ous system—bromide of potassium—also 
depresses tin. The consequence is that 
the electric current from the tin is re¬ 
duced in power, just as in the case of our 
own nerves. 

TONICS FOR TIN. 

But even a more striking effect can 
be produced. That deadly poison, oxalic 
acid, which painfully kills so many fool¬ 
ish suicides, is also a deadly poison to the 
tin wire. If so small a quantity as one 
grain in ten thousand grains of water is 
used, the electrical response of the tin 
wire is destroyed. The wire may be 
washed with water and scraped with em¬ 
ery paper to remove the poison, but still 
it gives no response. It is just as dead 
as a poisoned human being. 

This sensitiveness of metals to drugs 
is shown in a still more marvelous 
way. There are several drugs which, 
if taken by human beings in small 
doses, are stimulating, but if taken 
in large doses have the opposite 
effect. One grain of quinine two or three 
times a day, for instance, acts as a stimu¬ 
lant. But if doses of three grains and 
upwards were taken the effect would be 
seriously depressing. Now, a piece of tin 
wire is affected in precisely the same way 
by solution of potash. When three 
grains in a thousand of water are ap¬ 
plied, the tin becomes more lively, and 
gives off a stronger current; when thirty 
grains in a thousand of water are used 





REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


59 


the wire is utterly paralyzed, and gives 
off no electricity whatever. 

DO THEY THINK? 

In many other ways the tin wire has 
shown evidence of possessing something 
remarkably like vitality. For example, it 
was affected by heat and cold, just as 
animals and plants are affected. When it 
was cooled down to within 9 deg. of 
freezing point it became exceedingly slug¬ 
gish; when warmed to 86 deg. by means 
of hot water it became very brisk, as most 
plants would under the same conditions; 
but when heated to 194 deg. it grew so 
feeble as to give off only a very slight 
current. 

Tin wire and strips of platinum may 
not be able to talk or walk. But it is 
obvious that they have feelings of some 
sort. 

DISEASES OF METALS. 

Many metals show symptoms of poi¬ 
soning, rendering them unfit for use. 
Thus steel can, by means of small quan¬ 
tities of hydrogen and under certain cir¬ 
cumstances, be very seriously affected. 
Let us take two steel bars of the same 
material, both heated to a red heat, one 
surrounded by air, the other exposed to 
the influences of hydrogen or hydrogen 
gas, chilling both bars in water after heat¬ 
ing; we shall find the bar heated in hyd¬ 
rogen to be brittle, whereas the other 
bar, heated in air, will turn out to be 
far superior. The hydrogen has in this 
instance acted like poison upon the heated 
steel, and very small quantities of such 
poisonous matter will suffice to produce 
very violent effects. The disease in ques¬ 
tion can be radically cured, it only being 


necessary to anneal the poisoned bar, re¬ 
peating the process by heating exposed 
to air. The poisoned steel, by being al¬ 
lowed to lie for a long time, will, with¬ 
out any further expert treatment, show 
signs of improvement to a certain degree, 
the poison gradually leaving it. A better 
treatment still is boiling in water or oil, 
which process may be compared to using 
warm compresses in the case of human 
beings. 

Similar symptoms of poisoning, caused 
by hydrogen or gases containing hydro- 



Fig. 1. Crystals in copper wire. 


gen (as gas for lighting purposes), are 
apparent in copper when exposed to red 
heat. Not every kind of copper is sus¬ 
ceptible to this poisoning in equal degree. 
Copper perfectly free of cuprous oxide is 
entirely exempt from poisoning. Most 
of the various coppers of commerce, how¬ 
ever, contain cuprous oxide, formed dur¬ 
ing the smelting process while exposed to 
atmospheric influences. In such cop¬ 
pers, containing cuprous oxide, hydro¬ 
gen causes a terrible disease on the cop¬ 
per being heated red hot. The copper 
bursts asunder and is permeated by cracks, 





60 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


as shown in Fig. 2—natural size. This 
disease is practically incurable, and can 
be eradicated by re-smelting only. The 
results work destructively according to 
the amount of cuprous oxide contained 
in the copper. 

METALS DISEASED FROM ABUSE. 

Metals can become diseased from im¬ 
proper treatment, as, for instance, copper 
and steel when exposed a certain length 
of time to temperatures exceeding fixed 
limits. The copper in consequence loses 
a great part of its ductility and bending 



Fig 2. Copper burst asunder by disease. 

qualities. In steel the disease can be¬ 
come so virulent that a steel bar so in¬ 
fected can, on falling- on the ground, 
break to pieces. The technical expert 
calls such disease “overheating.” 

Every tool manufacturer knows how 
easily common tool steel is apt to become 
diseased when, before hardening, it has 
been exposed to too high temperatures. 
In bad cases the disease will cause the 
steel to crack 011 being tempered. In 
light cases the cracks ensuing are not 
visible, but cause the edges of the steel 


to break off in use, besides giving rise to 
constant contention between consumer and 
producer of tool steel. Recent investiga¬ 
tion has succeeded in fixing certain sure 


Fig. 3. Structure of tool steel properly hardened. 



characteristics to aid in determining the 
existence of this disease and to decide 
where to place the blame. Here the 
microscope affords us aid. The two 



Fig. 4. Tool steel diseased by overheating. 

microscopic photographs, Figs. 3 and 4, 
will serve to make this plain to the reader. 
Fig. 3 shows the structure of a piece of 
tool steel after passing through the proper 
hardening process. Fig. 4, on the other 
hand, gives an idea of the structure of 






REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


61 


the same steel when, in consequence of 
overheating before tempering, it has be¬ 
come diseased. The illustrations are en¬ 
larged 750-fold. The difference between 
the two will be readily apparent. 

Figs. 3 and 4 do not represent frac¬ 
tures, which, owing to the manner of the 
inequalities, would not admit of being so 
strongly magnified. The figures repre¬ 
sent polished surfaces. A neatly 
smoothed cutting surface through the 


metal is polished and this polished sur¬ 
face treated by a proper etching reagent. 
The surface thus prepared is observed 
under the microscope, whereby the etched 
opaque polished specimen itself serves as 
an illuminating mirror. In this manner 
we can magnify 2000-fold. These pro¬ 
cesses, first enjployed by Sorby and A. 
Martens, today form the base for the 
proper investigation of diseases of metals 
and their various stages of life. 


MYSTERIES OF THE LOWEST KNOWN FORMS OF 

LIFE. 


The amoeba is about the lowest form of 
life. It is but a mass of protoplasm, 
visible only under the microscope, a sin¬ 
gle celled organism, without arms, legs, 
mouth, or internal organs of amy kind, 
reproducing itself by simple division into 
two parts, each becoming a separate ani¬ 
malcule. The home of the amoeba is 
in ponds and ditches. 

The habits and customs of the amoeba 
should be of much human interest, as it 
is one of the starting points, perhaps the 
real starting point, in the evolution of 
man, and again because man is an 
amoebiform organism or a glomeration of 
amoebae. From this point of view Dr. 
John H. Flagg, the scientist, had said 
much of interest to the Boston Scientific 
Society about the amoeba as the “be¬ 
ginning of mind,” for in this pro¬ 
toplasmic microscopic mates all the 
fundamental functions of mind may be 
observed. It has, as Dr. Flagg says, the 
usual animal functions of locomotion, 
sensation, selection, nutrition and repro¬ 
duction, and for this reason he regards it 
as the beginning of psychic life. It moves 


without legs by thrusting out one series 
of pseudopodia in front and retracting 
others behind. Though without mouth 
or stomach, it eats by enveloping its food 
and absorbing it, rejecting everything 
that is non-nutritious. Though without 
a nervous system, it shrinks from a 
needle’s point and from the source of 
light. It calculates position and distance. 
It “discharges a shower of darts at its 
prey while it is still at a distance, and, 
having disabled it, approaches and con¬ 
sumes it at its leisure.” “They retire 
from their hunting ground to the shelter 
of a grain of sand, it may be, while they 
eat, but they have no apparent difficulty 
in making a straight line back in quest 
of more food, although the original route 
of exploration may have been exceed¬ 
ingly devious.” 

In a word, in this tiny, invisible micro¬ 
cosm Dr. Flagg finds memory, reason, 
cunning, intelligence, “a concentrated es¬ 
sence of life.” As each of us, from high¬ 
est to lowest, was in the beginning an 
amoeba, though not an amoeba of the 
ditch or pond hole, and as all, even the 












62 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


best of us, are but an aggregation of 
amoebae, it is but meet that we should be 
interested in this remote ancestor and 
proud of its general ability, though it 
may not be of the most strenuous sort. 
It should be remembered that the amoeba 
is too little to be seen with the naked eye, 
and yet. while it has no physical organs 
and no gray matter, and an extremely 
limited environment, it is displaying 
physical and mental vigor of no common 
order. We have no reason to be ashamed 
of our protean animalcule, the amoeba. 

NERVE-LIFE IN PLANTS. 

That certain plants exhibit sensitive¬ 
ness to stimulation is a well-known fact. 
We have the case of the English sun¬ 
dews, whose leaves are provided with 
sensitive tentacles or feelers. When an 
unwary fly stumbles across the leaf its 
legs become entangled in the gummy se¬ 
cretion of the tentacles, and these last 
bend downward over the insect, and thus 
tie it to the leaf surface. Escape is im¬ 
possible ; the insect dies, and the leaf con¬ 
verts itself into a digestive hollow, within 
which the insect is digested by means of 
secretions nearly akin to those which are 
represented in the animal’s digestive 
work. The resultant, in the shape of ani¬ 
mal matter, is absorbed by the plant as 
part and parcel of its nourishment. 
Without insect food these plants cannot 
flourish. It is the general rule of nature 
that the animal feeds on the plant. Here 
the ordinary order of things is reversed; 
for the plant, as if in retaliation, demands 
the sacrifice of the animal to its nutritive 
needs. 

Other plants exhibit a high degree of 
sensitiveness intended to assist the cap¬ 


ture of insect prey. The “Venus fly 
trap, or dioncea, of North Carolina is 
an example in point. Its leaf is divided 
by a hinge into two lobes, or halves. 
Each half is provided with three sensi¬ 
tive hairs. If an insect touches a hair 
the leaf halves close upon it after the 
manner of the old fashioned rat trap, 
only the insect is inclosed within the leaf 
and is there duly digested. 

There are other plants which, while 
they do not capture insects, nevertheless 
show sensitiveness in a high degree. 
Shelley s Sensitive Plant”—the mimosa 
of the botanist—illustrates this latter 
type. The leaves droop on the slightest 
touch, yet if rain falls on them they do 
not show irritability. This fact would 
appear to indicate that the influence of 
use and want has been duly represented 
in such a case. If on the fall of everv 
rain shower the plant carried out its leaf 
movements the result would imply a woe¬ 
ful waste of its nervous energy. Hence 
to natural stimuli, as it were, it pays no 
heed; but when, on the other hand, there 
is represented the touch of a foreign 
body, down goes the leaf. 

EXPLANATION 
OF SENSITIVENESS. 

To explain these curious facts regard¬ 
ing the sensitiveness of plants we have 
to take a broad and general view of vege¬ 
table existence at large. It is a matter 
of common observation that ordinary 
plants show a certain degree of sensitive¬ 
ness to heat and to cold. The daisies on 
the lawn will close their petals (or rather 
“florets”) when a cold wave comes and 
open them again when the sun shines, 
thus illustrating a sensitiveness to the ele- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


ments. All higher exhibitions of plant 
sensation are really developments of what 
we find to be universal in the plant world. 

We may with safety assume that no 
living being, animal or plant, is nonsen¬ 
sitive. They must one and all possess 
a faculty of sensation, for the plain rea¬ 
son that one and all possess living mat¬ 
ter (or protoplasm), and everywhere we 
meet with living matter we find it ex- 


03 


When we have regard to plant struc¬ 
ture, by way of endeavoring + o explain 
the machinery on which the actions we 
have just described depend, we find that 
in plants the living matter is largely 
locked up within cells or minute sacs, 
with thick or at least resistant walls. It 
is different in the case of the animal. 
1 here we find the sensitive matter con¬ 
tinuous throughout its frame. A nerve 



Barney Oldfield and his “Peerless Green Dragon,” wrecked in race at St. Louis Exposi¬ 
tion, when he was seriously injured and two bystanders were instantly killed. 


hibiting sensitiveness as one of its pri¬ 
mary qualities. The trend of our 
thoughts, therefore, clearly leads us to see 
that all plants are really sensitive, high 
and low alike; only certain species have 
acquired a power of exhibiting their irri¬ 
tability by way of capturing insects, or 
as in the case of the sensitive plants, for 
reasons we are unable adequately to ex¬ 
plain. 


illustrates this latter fact, showing us the 
means whereby an impression made on 
one part of the body is readily trans¬ 
ferred to another and distant part. The 
living matter of the animal, so to speak, 
is all in one; in the plant it is contained 
within separate cavities or cells, render¬ 
ing obvious response to impressions less 
likely. 

Yet botanists have shown that from 











BOOK OF THE TIMES 


04 


cell to cell of the plant pass delicate con¬ 
necting threads of living matter, and it 
is these threads which no doubt convey 
what messages plants can receive and act 
upon. In the case of plants which are 
markedly sensitive we may suppose there 
has been developed a greater facility for 
the conveyance of messages than exists 
in the case of their neighbors. 

DARWIN’S THEOF 


THE BEGINNING OF NERVES. 

Is this, then, the beginning of nerves? 
We have only to suppose that in the ani¬ 
mal body, owing to its special construc¬ 
tion, there is freer scope for the play of 
nervous action than exists in the plant 
to explain why sensitiveness is more ap¬ 
parently a quality and feature of the ani¬ 
mal than it is of its living neighbor. 

r OF EVOLUTION. 


Darwin's theory of the origin and de¬ 
velopment of the species has been so uni¬ 
versally accepted that any opposing views 
from scientific sources is a novelty. Prof. 
Hugo de Vries, a famous Dutch scientist, 
disagrees with Darwin on one important 
point. Darwin believed species of plants 
and animals were originated in two ways. 
(i) Certain members of an existing spe¬ 
cies undergo, generation after genera¬ 
tion, slight, imperceptible changes of con¬ 
struction and habit, due to peculiarities of 
their environment, until they develop, 
first into a new variety and then into a 
new species. (2) A new species is sud¬ 
denly created by the birth of an offspring 
utterly different from its parents. Prof, 
de Vries believes the latter method is the 
only one by which new species ever come 
into existence. 

He brings a good deal of interesting 
evidence to support his position. He 
points out that plants and animals almost 
universally tend toward and not away 
from the average of their kind. Measure¬ 
ments were made of all the recruits en¬ 
listed in the Dutch army. It was found 
that almost all of them approached close¬ 
ly to an average. The tall and the short 
were extremely exceptional. In his gar¬ 
den at Amsterdam Prof, de Vries has ex¬ 


perimented on a certain primrose which 
was imported from America, and which 
now runs wild in Holland. Among thou¬ 
sands of these primroses only two slight 
mutations were found in the course of 
a year. He transplanted the slightly 
changed plants, but their descendants 
speedily reverted to the original type. 
Then one day there was found a new sort 
of primrose, whose leaves were darker, 
whose foliage was denser, whose fruit 
was shorter and stouter, and whose seeds 
were larger than those of the plant from 
which they had sprung. Prof, de Vries 
also transplanted this new primrose by 
itself. It has shown no tendency to re¬ 
vert to the type of its ancestors, or to 
undergo further variation, but looks 
just as it did the first day he found it. 

That he has been unable even partially 
to develop a species by preserving slight 
variations and at the same time has orig¬ 
inated a wholly new species by preserving 
one sudden and great variation, certainly 
tends strongly to support Prof, de Vries’ 
position. But it will take a good deal 
more than this to convince students of 
Darwin’s writings that Prof, de Vries’ 
modification of Darwin’s theory is justi¬ 
fied. Darwin gave to the world an enor¬ 
mous amount of evidence tending to show 






REV ELAT JO NS OF SCIENCE 


65 


that biological evolution takes place by 
the slow accretion of slight variations 
far more generally than by sudden, ex¬ 
treme changes in plants and animals. The 
theory of evolution, as imported from 
biology into other sciences, invariably in¬ 
volves the postulate that this is the way 
development of all kinds commonly takes 
place. Prof, de Vries’ doctrine, if ac¬ 
cepted, would work a revolution in evolu¬ 
tionary philosophy. 

EVOLUTION AN ACCEPTED FACT. 

How the theory of evolution has seized 
upon the intellects and imaginations of 
men and in a few years leavened the 
whole loaf of scientific and philosophic 
thought, and even of the thought of men 
who know little about science or philos¬ 
ophy, is, by the way, a story of almost 
romantic interest. Darwin is frequently 
called the “father of evolution." The 
title would more properly be given to 
Aristotle. More than 2,000 years ago 
the great Stagirite advanced ideas re¬ 
garding the development of living or¬ 
ganisms which modern science has 
proved correct. The term “evolution 
was first introduced into biological writ¬ 
ings in the eighteenth century. Des¬ 
cartes, De Maillet, and Robinet in that 
century caught fleeting glimpses of the 
right theory. Maupertius suggested a 
hypothesis as to the causes of variation 
which he thought might explain how all 
animals were descended from a single 
pair. Toward the close of the eighteenth 
and in the early part of the nineteenth 
centuries Erasmus Darwin, grandfather 
of the great naturalist of that name, 
Goethe the poet, Treviranus, and La¬ 
marck—especially the latter—advanced 
remarkably correct opinions. But the 


time was not yet ripe. Religious preju¬ 
dices dominated pious minds. Cuvier’s 
theory of the immutability of species held 
sway in the scientific world. Lamarck 
was ridiculed. He was attacked even by 
Sir Charles Lyell, who has done more 
than all other men to add geologv to the 
domain of the evolutionists. 
SIMULTANEOUS DISCOVERIES. 

But at last the stone which the builders 
had so long rejected was to become the 
head of the corner. In 1842, after hav¬ 
ing been for five years engaged, in spite 
of bad health, in gathering facts bearing 
on the question of the origin of species, 
Charles Robert Darwin, who had now 
retired to his historic home at Down, in 
Kent, “allowed himself to speculate” on 
the subject. With constitutional caution 
he delayed publication of his hypothesis 
until 1858. In that year he received a 
memoir from Mr. Alfred Russell Wal¬ 
lace, who was in the Malay archipelago, 
and found, to his astonishment, that Wal¬ 
lace had come to almost the same conclu¬ 
sions he had. He communicated the facts 
to Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph 
Hooker. They persuaded him to read a 
sketch of his opinion along with Wal¬ 
lace’s memoir at the meetmq- of the Lin- 
nean society on July 1, 1858. Immediate¬ 
ly afterward Darwin set to work to com¬ 
press the mass of notes he had accumu¬ 
lated and the next year appeared his 
epoch making book, “Origin of Species 
by Means of Natural Selection.” The 
Darwinian theory excited the deepest in¬ 
terest throughout the civilized world. It 
was vigorously attacked. Persons who 
believed it inconsistent with Christianity 
assailed it with special violence. It was 
defended with equal energy and more 





66 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


than equal ability, and has ever since 
gained ground upon its adversaries. The 
“Descent of Man,” published in 1871, in 
which Mr. Darwin tried to prove man’s 
derivation from the anthropoid apes, 
raised another controversial storm. 

Darwin only attempted to prove that 
the various species of plants and animals 
were developed by the preservation of 
favored races in the struggle for exist¬ 
ence. In i860, almost simultaneously 
with the publication of Darwin's and 
Wallace's writings, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
announced his purpose of publishing 
under the title, “System of Synthetic 
Philosophy,” a series of works which 
should trace the operation of the law of 
evolution through organic life, mind, so¬ 
ciety, and morality. Mr. Spencer was 
then a man forty years old. He suffered 
from chronic bad health. He was terri¬ 
bly nervous. Several times he was near 
death. P'or years he could never work 
more than four hours a day. \ et he stuck 
doggedly to his stupendous task for al¬ 
most forty years, and at last finished it. 
In the ten large volumes of his “Synthetic 
Philosophy,” Mr. Spencer applies the the¬ 
ory of evolution to the smallest protozoon 
as well as to man, to the ceremonial in¬ 
stitutions of the savage, and to civilized 
life, to the smallest meteorite, and to the 
whole physical universe. Everywhere he 
finds evidences of that “dissipation of 
motion and integration of matter" which, 
according to his definition, constitute evo¬ 
lution. Spencer’s writings are woefully 
hard reading, but they are the greatest of 
all expositions of evolutionary doctrine 
and have exerted a stupendous influence 
on modern thought. 

The evolutionary doctrine, as elab¬ 


orated by Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, and, 
in this country, by John Fiske, has, in 
fact, affected the thinking of persons of 
almost every degree of intelligence. It 
has penetrated literature until every man 
who reads is more or less of an evolution¬ 
ist, whether he knows it or not. It ap¬ 
peals to common knowledge and common 
sense; and a philosophical doctrine that 
appeals to common sense can stand a 
good deal of prejudiced or speculative 
buffeting. 

EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 

No animal substance returns directly 
to the vegetable. It must first be broken 
up into minerals and gases. Nor will 
animal matter that is dead take on again 
the life force and retrace its steps into 
living forms. In order to generate life 
in the laboratory, as you have seen done 
here, we must enter this cycle of trans¬ 
mutation at the point of the circle where 
life would naturally begin if nature had 
produced the favorable conditions instead 
of man. It does not follow that because 
we cannot divert matter upon a tangent 
at any point of intersection we wish that 
‘life can only come from antecedent life.’ 
At three quadrants of the circle all is 
alive—living mineral, living vegetable, 
living animal, and in the fourth and last 
quadrant of the circle all is dead. Then 
the life principle takes hold of the min¬ 
erals and gases and starts them again 
upon their journey. 

This life principle is magnetism (a 
form of motion) generated by evapora¬ 
tion ; the more active the evaporation the 
more of the living force is generated-. In 
mineral life the evaporation is caused by 
the direct action of heat upon moisture. 




REVELATIONS OE SCIENCE 


67 


producing the magnetism which causes 
crystallizations of all kinds from that of 
the frost crystal on the window pane to 
the six-sided crystal of silicon, capped at 
either end with a beautiful pyramid, 
which marks the border line between the 
mineral and vegetable kingdoms. In veg¬ 
etable life this evaporation producing 
magnetism is caused by chemical action, 
aiding that of mineral life in the building 
of organic compounds. 

In animal life oxidization produces 
evaporation, which generates magnetism, 
adding a third force to the building of 
animal structures. Thus, the mineral has 
one, the vegetable has two and the ani¬ 
mal three forms of magnetism in the 
building of their characteristic structures. 
All is magnetism, all its produced by 
evaporation, yet each in some manner 
differs from the other and is produced in 
a different way. True, it is not easy to 
draw the line of demarcation between the 
three kingdoms of nature, yet where we 
find the three forces combined, we find 
animal life being generated. Either form 
may exist by itself and produce its char¬ 
acteristic manifestations, all of which are 
so well known as to require no especial 
mention here. 

Briefly summed up, this is the effect 
of two of the three causes known to exist 
as far as animal life is concerned. The 
ultimate cause is sunlight, acting under 
the different conditions already consid¬ 
ered. The exciting is the affinity matter 
has for energy under these different con¬ 
ditions. But what of the determining 
cause? Why do these two factors act in 
unison along well defined lines? To this 
question there are but two possible an¬ 
swers. The determining cause is either 


intelligent or it is not. If we admit it to 
be intelligent and ever present in all the 
operations of nature then all is luminous; 
then there is no chance to be considered. 
But who can believe that all this splendid 
order and adaptation to a definite end is 
controlled by chance? Can chance de¬ 
termine definite results? 

THE EYE. 

There was certainly a time long ago 
when living creatures were not blessed 
with eyes. In creatures now living upon 
the earth we may trace a series of eyes 
from the highest and most efficient to the 
simplest dot of black pigment. The eye 
of the eagle may stand for the first, and 
the eight sense-germs of a jeilyfish for 
the other extreme. 

The eye of a jellyfish is so primitive 
that we can hardly say whether it sees or 
feels. That is, when a floating jellyfish 
begins to sink below the surface of the 
water as the shadow of an advancing 
ship falls upon it, it is probably affected 
by the sensation of darkness, but perhaps 
the pressure of the onrushing waves has 
something to do with it. 

Disregard for a time the two bright 
eyes of the lizard, one on each side of 
his head, and look directly down on the 
centre of the skull between them. Here 
we will find an oddly shaped scale 
marked with a little depression, and this 
is, indeed, what is left of our Cyclopean 
eye in the tiny sand creature. Lizards 
doubtless derive very little benefit from it, 
as the nerve leading from it is very small, 
but in some of their ancestors it must 
have been of great value in detecting the 
presence of enemies from above. In all 
creatures above lizards this third medium 









68 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


eye (called the pineal), is found, although 
of no use whatever; this persistence, per¬ 
haps, showing of what great importance 
it once was. In a chick in the early 
stages of incubation this eye is very con¬ 
siderably developed, while yet the paired 
eyes are but small structures. But sud¬ 
denly nature seems to realize that the old 
regime has passed—that the little bird will 
need other more modern eyes, and the two 
side eyes begin to develop with wonder¬ 
ful rapidity, and soon catch up with and 
distance the Cyclops eye, whose early 
start ends only in promise. 

WONDERS OF THE THIRD EYE. 

A horse, a bat, a mole, a monkey, a 
seal, all have a trace of this third eye, 
and when we put a finger on the “soft 
spot" of the head of a tiny baby, we real¬ 
ize the wonderful import of it—that the 
softness is due to a near approach of this 
same third eye to the surface, striving 
as it has done in so many lower crea¬ 
tures to push its poor imperfect lens to 
where the light can act upon it. But the 
old ways have given place to new, and 
the child’s blue eyes look out to you and 
the world and see all that is necessary 
for its life and needs. 

Finally, let us turn to the most perfect 
eye nature has ever produced. We can 
read and write and do many things by 
the aid of our eyes that are forbidden to 
other creatures of the earth; but this is 
because of the brain behind directing the 
eyes. We can look closely at the stars, 
and we can watch the actions of a tiny 
dot of life many thousands of times 
smaller than a mote of dust. All this 
we can do by means of the two “magic 
tubes," the telescope and microscope. 


But when the unaided eye is alone con¬ 
sidered, birds put us to shame. “Observe 
an eagle," writes a noted scientist, 
“soaring aloft until he seems to us but 
a speck in the blue expanse. He is far¬ 
sighted ; and, scanning the earth below, 
descries an object much smaller than 
himself, which would be invisible to us 
at that distance. He prepares to pounce 
upon his quarry; in the moment required 
for the deadly plunge he becomes near¬ 
sighted, seizes his victim with unerring 
aim, and sees well how to complete the 
bloody work begun. A humming bird 
darts so quickly that our eyes cannot fol¬ 
low him, yet instantaneously settles as 
light as a feather upon a tiny twig. How 
far off it was when first perceived we do 
not know, but in the intervening frac¬ 
tion of a second the twig has rushed into 
the focus of distinct vision from many 
yards away. A woodcock tears through 
the thickest cover as if it were clear space, 
avoiding every obstacle. The only things 
to the accurate perception of which birds’ 
eyes appear not to have accommodated 
themselves are telegraph wires and light¬ 
houses; thousands of birds are annually 
hurled against these objects to their de¬ 
struction." 

THE HANDS AND FEET. 

Previous to the appearance of verte¬ 
brate limbs a series of manifold devices 
had originated by which the body could 
be transported from place to place and 
appropriate foodstuffs seized and carried 
to the mouth. These consisted of more 
or less permanent extensions of the body 
substances, naked or clothed in protective 
shields of denser material. In some types 
the limbs were created in the act of exten- 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


69 


sion itself and were retracted by absorp¬ 
tion and disappearance into the general 
body mass; in some they were formed of 
erectile tissues which could be protracted 
or withdrawn as occasion demanded; in 
some the whole body was thus contractile, 
and alternately elongated and shortened 
as the animal progressed; in some the 
organs of locomotion consisted of defin¬ 
itely formed limbs, which, while subject 
to loss by violence or even sudden shock, 
might be repeatedly and perfectly regen¬ 
erated in the course of the individual life. 
In the forms to which they are molded 
and the mechanical principles upon which 
they depend, these organs of movement 
present the utmost variety, including 
ameboid extensions, flagellate cilia, pul¬ 
sating bells, contractile stalks and bodies, 
suckered tentacles, swimming fins and 
tails, wings, and articulated legs. They 
appear as a great series of adaptive levels 
through which the evolution of this par¬ 
ticular mechanism passed toward more 
highly integrated and developed types. 

The earliest form of locomotion which 
vertebrate limbs fulfilled was propulsion 
through the water. The problem to be 
solved did not include the support of the 

STRANGE FACTS 

Did you know that a cockroach, in 
^pite of a well-developed nose, insists 
upon breathing through tubes in his 
body ? 

Have you observed that it is exactly 
eleven times as hard to kill a spider as 
it is any other insect? 

Have you been told that ants have 
ears, but are deaf, and are especially 
fond of perfumes? 


body, which was buoyed up by the dense 
medium in which the animal moved. The 
same dense medium afforded a sufficient 
resistance to allow of a relatively slow 
and weak movement on the part of the 
locomotive organs. The earliest verte¬ 
brate limbs, or the body extensions which 
foreshadowed them in times still earlier, 
needed neither the strength and rigidity 
of the terrestrial leg nor the expanse and 
velocity of stroke of the aerial wing. 

From this primitive terrestrial verte¬ 
brate limb, through a series of cleavages 
of, or buddings from, its extremity, giv¬ 
ing successively two, three, and four-toed 
forms, arose finally the five-toed general¬ 
ized type of mammalian limb. 

Henceforth no important structural 
changes are to occur in the general fea¬ 
tures of the hand. Development is to take 
place chiefly through an increase in the 
facility and precision with which a vari¬ 
ety of relatively simple movements are 
made, and the substitution, in ever in¬ 
creasing grades of complexity, of me¬ 
chanical instruments for the use of the 
hand itself as a manipulative and con¬ 
structive agent. 

ABOUT INSECTS. 

The most ingenuous scientific inves¬ 
tigator is, for instance, entirely unable 
to tell you why a fly has its remarkable 
double set of eyes, and must inflate its 
wings like a pneumatic bicycle tire be¬ 
fore it can fly. 

Why nature provided the earwigs (that 
agreeable little bug that crawls into your 
ears when you are taking a nap on the 
grass) with an enormous pair of black- 






70 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


smith’s pincers fastened on behind the 
end of his body nobody can explain. 
The unfortunate creature is compelled 
to back up to whatever he wants to tackle, 
and his eyes being at the other end of 
his body, he never can see what his claws 
are doing. 

Nor has the most thoughtful student 
been able to tell why nature produced the 
day fly—so named because the poor in¬ 
sect is born in the morning, rushes 
through its early childhood in about an 
hour, enjoys a brief middle age of not 
over three-quarters of an hour, becomes 
aged and wrinkled and feeble in the next 
quarter of an hour and has passed away 
before noon. Incidentally it cannot be 
explained why this short-lived insect 
should be burdened by two long, hair¬ 
like and useless stylets which it must 
drag on behind itself through its brief 
career. 

, HOW A FLY WALKS ON THE 
CEILING. 

For a long time it was generally un¬ 
derstood that a fly was enabled to walk 
along the ceiling upside down without 
falling because each foot was a miniature 
air pump. Better microscopes and more 
careful observation soon exploded that 
theory. It was then explained that the 
feat was made possible because the bot¬ 
tom of the fly’s foot was covered with 
a sticky substance like mucilage. Still 
better lenses and further investigation 
now results in the present established 
scientific explanation that flies can walk 
upside down on smooth substances by 
the help of capillary adhesion. 

A patient investigator has, by a series 
of nice calculations, weighed and mea¬ 


sured the hairs on a fly’s foot. He finds 
that a fly would be upheld by the capil¬ 
lary attraction even if it were four-ninths 
as heavy again as it is. 

Every fly is estimated to possess about 
12,000 very minute foot hairs. It is 
true that these hairs exude a slimy fluid, 
and it is because of the repulsion between 
a watery surface and this oily liquid that 
a fly finds it difficult to crawl up a damp 
pane of glass. 

A fact little known by householders, 
but applied successfully by druggists, is 
that flies flee before the smell of sassa¬ 
fras. Druggists who sprinkle essence 
of sassafras over their soda-water coun¬ 
ters are never troubled by flies. 

The gnat is equipped with a stiff, sharp 
probe like a needle. This he pushes 
down into your skin and ejects a very 
minute particle of irritant, which makes 
the blood flow to the surface of the skin. 
As the probe sinks into the flesh the 
gnat’s flexible, hollow sucker is pushed 
up. When the probe is inserted its full 
length and the local irritation has brought 
sufficient blood to the surface the flex¬ 
ible (and now more or less doubled-up) 
sucker begins to draw forth the blood 
from the little wound, 

COMPOUND NOSES. 

The cockroach, although its eyes are 
almost useless organs, being bent unde£ 
its head as its mouth is, for convenience 
in eating from the ground, has com¬ 
pound noses, in number nearly equal to 
the compound eyes of the fly. Its eyes, 
because of their position, are practically 
useless. It may not see the approach 
of human foes, but the long, hundred- 
jointed filaments of its antennas are ex- 






■ P- 

i . g 

I 1 • 

I | 


-£ ■ • -|v-; 

1 

! _*■“ ' -- 

—».. r y 


Making iron from sand. T and 2. Demonstrating the principle of the process: (1) Separating 
the iron from the sand by a magnet. (2) Binding the iron particles together with the bind¬ 
ing fluid. (3) Mr. Rouse, the inventor. (4) The machinery employed. (5) The mould 
in various forms of briquettes and pig-iron bars. 



































72 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tremely sensitive to sounds. These fila¬ 
ments are dotted all over with depres¬ 
sions, which entomologists declare are 
not feelers, but compound noses, and 
that the first warning they receive of 
human intruders comes through the 
sense of smell. 

Because they have a sense of smell so 
marvelously keen, they have been called 
the bloodhounds of the insect world. 
The cockroach has no lungs, but breathes 
through ten tubes on each side of his 
body, the tubes being tiny spirals like 
those of a door spring. 

Spiders thrown into the water skim 
swiftly to shore, without even wetting 
their feet, this because the hairy claws 
upon their feet imprison the air and keep 
them dry. If they find themselves too 
far out for this pedal rowing back they 
return to dry land in a way that for a 
long time puzzled investigators of their 
habits. All they knew was that suddenly 
the spider stopped running, braced its 
legs and seemed to be borne along by 
some mysterious force. 

It was observed that it was throwing 
off from the rear a tenuous silken thread, 
then another and another until the 
breeze was soon fanning a half dozen 
of the silken lines. Cunning Mr. Spider 
had swiftly spun his own sail, trans¬ 
formed himself into a sailboat and was 
scudding back to shore safe and trium¬ 
phant. 

SENSE OF SMELL IN ANTS. 

Ants, while seeing fairly, being pro¬ 
vided with one set of compound, and a 
set of simple eyes, are practically deaf. 
Penny whistles, violins and megaphones 
leave them equally unruffled. Their 


sense of smell is the most acute of their 
senses. When a brush wet with pachouli 
was placed near an ant hill the busy lit¬ 
tle denizens stopped their work and lit¬ 
erally lay dowfi in their delight, laying 
back their antennae in sensuous ecstasy. 

While scientists have disproven the 
charming story of the prudent ants sow¬ 
ing rice and harvesting it for their win¬ 
ter use, and proven that they really sleep 
away the winter as lazily as do bears, 
there is no question but that the tiny 
insects carry on a thriving dairy indus¬ 
try. The aphis, which is a more poetic 
name than its common one, plant louse, 
are confiscated by ants wherever found. 
Some enterprising and selfish ants drive 
their treasure home and keep it for their 
own family use, but most of them having 
the community spirit, the aphides are 
kept in herds. Underground stables are 
built for them. Their conquerors even 
tunnel the way for them up juicy plants, 
so that in case of a foray by warring 
tribes of ants, there would be a hiding 
place for the prisoners of war. The aphis 
is valuable to the ant colony because it 
is the ant’s Jersey cow. 

In death, as in life, the ants are aris¬ 
tocrats and rigid observers of caste dis¬ 
tinctions. For ants have their ceme¬ 
teries, and it is characteristic that the 
poor aphides and other slaves captured 
in war are buried, not with their mas¬ 
ters, but near the back fence, among the 
burdocks and ragweed, the potter’s field 
of the ants’ city of the dead. 

The flea has no wings, and doesn’t 
need any. He can jump farther in pro¬ 
portion to his size than any other insect. 
He is the kangaroo of bugs. He can 
jump exactly ioo times his height with- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


73 


out unusual effort. If a man could do 
that he could jump over the St. Paul 
building. New York, with ease and dis¬ 
patch. The difference between the legs 
of the flea and those of animals is that 
the joints which attach them to the body 
are many times stronger. If the thighs 


of a fly were as strong as those of a flea 
he could jump as far and his wings 
would be superfluous. Or, if a man’s 
thighs were as strong, proportionately, 
as a flea's, he could hop along the road 
and over the hills as fast as an automo¬ 
bile travels. 


A SCIENTIST WHO SHOWS LIVING ANIMALCULAE 

THAT HE HAS CREATED. 


HIS THEORIES OF LIFE 
AND ITS ORIGIN. 


THE PROFESSOR’S THEORY. 

“After animal life is started it must 


In discussing his experiments Dr. Lit¬ 
tlefield said: 

“I have been busy with experiments 


be maintained. Here a new process ob¬ 
tains, that of feeding, or the conversion 
of foreign substances into protoplasm. 



No. i. A very small portion of a dried tear, crystallized into queer-shaped fern fronds and 
crosses. Some of the latter are given still more magnified in No. 2. The actual size of 
the above circle, prior to magnification, was i-ioth of an inch. The crystals are 
formed of common salt, phosphate of sodium, and other ingredients. 

No. 2. The above depicts a circle i-20th of an inch in diameter, magnified, containing 
crosses of crystal found in a dried tear, and are a few of the many contained in No. 
1 on a smaller scale. 


as to the cause of death in the living 
protopl .sm and I have worked out some 
interesting and important facts connected 
with this strange phenomenon of living 
matter. I have stated that ‘life is 
produced by certain vibrations, acting 
on definite compounds of matter.’ Tbis 
I believe to be a correct definition of 
the ultimate cause of life—animal 
life. 


This is a process of oxidation carried on 
in the cells of the protoplasmic mass. 
Now, just so long as this supply of new 
material exactly equals the waste in the 
act of living—mere living—death does 
not occur, or at least has not occurred so 
long as this equilibrium has been main¬ 
tained. But with any increase of bulk 
or size in the mass by feeding, although 
all the other conditions necessary to life 







74 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


are maintained, the dangers of death 
begin, and sooner or later the mass dies. 
And the phenomena of death! What 
startling wonders it reveals! During the 
time that ‘life' dwells within the mass of 
protoplasm it is clear, transparent, jelly- 
like, capable of movement and nutrition. 
But as the life leaves it—for you can 
see it do this—the mass becomes rigid, 
opaque, incapable of movement and loses 
its jelly-like appearance. Before death 
the mass is insoluble in water, but after 
death it is easily dissolved and all of its 
ultimate material elements can be recov¬ 
ered in the original forms, together with 
the magnetic force generated by the vi¬ 
brations. What, then, left it at death? 
Is it possible that the union of vibrations, 
with definite compounds of material ele¬ 
ments, invites a third factor, whose pres¬ 
ence is the determining cause between 
life and death and whose absence means 
death ? 

“While the living protoplasm can be 
made in large quantities, it requires sev¬ 
eral hours to develop into living forms, 
and then I am never quite certain just 
what form the protoplasm is going to as¬ 
sume ; therefore an attempt to show these 
things to an audience might prove very 
embarrassing. One must study for hours 
to fully appreciate the wonderful work 
that is going on in the construction of 
living forms from inanimate matter. Na¬ 
ture’s laboratory is out of doors, and she 
takes all the time she needs in doing her 
work, and the very best we can do is to 
imitate her in her work. Time and con¬ 
ditions are essential to success, and these 
we cannot always have before an audi¬ 
ence. The very best we can do, then, is 
to tell and show the ‘story’ and let those 


who care to investigate the phenomena 
and substantiate the facts. 

“Twelve elements enter into every liv¬ 
ing thing, and, according to Huxley, 
protoplasm is the beginning of every liv¬ 
ing thing. 

GRADUAL EVOLUTION. 

“Protoplasms break up into eggs ac¬ 
cording to environments, from which 
various living things are evolved. En¬ 
vironments so slightly different as to be 
unperceivahle to the human mind and eye 
to a certainty control what the progeny 
will be, and so subtle, I say, are the forces 
of nature, so unfathomable her ways, that 
one cannot prophesy what will come of 
the protoplasm. The cutting off of a ray 
of light or a breath of air may be re¬ 
sponsible for the changes which, after 
happening, we can see readily. It may 
be responsible in one case for imperfect 
wings, rudimentary or incomplete legs, 
or the changing into gnats or worms 
what under other environments and con¬ 
ditions might have been widely different. 

“All elements start on their journey as 
inorganic minerals or gases, thence are 
transformed into organic compounds in 
the vegetable kingdom, and are used up 
by the animal world and returned to the 
earth in the form of gases and minerals. 
Thus they complete their cycle of change. 

“Intimately connected with this circu¬ 
lation of the elements is the circulation of 
energy, though separate and apart from 
matter. Energy is not limited to our 
earth or its atmosphere. It streams to 
our planet with the sunlight, and, having 
mn its course through mineral, plant and 
animal life, flows back again into illim¬ 
itable space. It is as impossible to de- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


75 


stroy energy as it is to destroy matter. 
Both are self-existent and eternal; neither 
had a beginning nor will ever have an 
ending. Physical life is one of the mani¬ 
festations of this eternal energy. Since 
man has the power to transform one 
form of energy into another by the use 
of various mechanical devices and chemi¬ 
cal compounds, he can, by proper com¬ 
binations, transform that expression of 
energy into life itself. 

“It must be borne in mind that nature 
makes no leaps, nor can man do so, for 
there are certain well defined lines of 
progression which must be followed if 
we desire to produce definite results. 
This holds true in every department of 
nature. Those who sent forth to the 
world the scientific ultimatum ‘that from 
the non-living cannot come the living’ 
did so because living forms cannot spring 
up from decaying animal matter; they 
should have known better than to look 
for the beginning of life where it ends 
Animal life begins where vegetable life 
ends; where crystallization ceases in the 
mineral vegetable formation begins in the 
organic. Thus we have a well defined 
line of progression—mineral, vegetable, 
animal. 

THE SCIENCE OF ATHEISTS. 

“All atheistic scientists believe in a de¬ 
termining factor in every phenomenon. 
Can then blind chance determine to evolve 
mind? If. then, mind be not a factor in 
the transient phenomena of nature, what 
manifestation of this universal energy is 
nearest to mind ? And by what apparatus 
can we transform it into mind? The 
answer that ‘every form of life manifests 
intelligence’ is no solution to the prob¬ 


lem. This only proves my contention 
that mind is an ever present factor in all 
the operations of nature. 

“If it be answered that ‘brain substance 
transforms vital energy into mind,’ I 
need only to remind you that intelligence 
ic manifested in the lowest forms of life 
that has neither a trace of nervous mat¬ 
ter nor brain substance. If you answer 
me again that mind is the product of the 
ceaseless activity of matter and energy 
1 ask, ‘Then can the least produce the 
greatest ?’ Can a stream rise above its 
source ? And should you finally concede 
that mind is a product of life, I need only 
point to you the incalculable millions of 
examples of mathematical motions as 
proof of the presence of mind in the uni¬ 
verse ages before the advent of life into 
the world. 

“Admitting, then, that mind, energy 
and matter are the three factors which 
produce all the transient phenomena, 
what relation exists between the creator 
and the created? We have already seen 
the various stages of change through 
which matter passes in its various trans¬ 
formations in completing a circle of'ac¬ 
tivity. We need only to study the law 
of the conservation of energy to trace its 
various expressions back to sunlight, 
whence it came. And what of mind? 
Does it go back, too, to the great source 
of being? Nay, I ask, does the body re¬ 
turn to dust? Why not then the spirit 
to Him who gave it? But what of its 
individuality? The various manifesta¬ 
tions of energy lose their identity in their 
ultimate source. 

“The body mingles its personality with 
die dust of Mother Earth and is lost. 
Now what of the spirit? Does a mansion 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 


7 6 


lose its beauty when the scaffolding is 
torn away and the sound of the hammer 
is stilled ? Or does it stand out in clearer 
perspective against the azure sky? But 
can it be shown that the ultimate purpose 
of life is to build a spiritual entity? It 
can, I contend.” 

LIFE IN CRYSTALS. 

Dr. Littlefield took one ounce of com¬ 
mon salt and mixed it with six ounces 
of pure water, six ounces of 90 per cent 
alcohol and two ounces of aqua am¬ 
monia. 

This compound was distributed on five 
small plates, all covered by an air-tight 


glass tube. It required ninety minutes 
for the salt crystals to impregnate with 
the hydrogen, but at the end of that 
time the crystals, it is said, were trans¬ 
formed into living forces that imme¬ 
diately sought nourishment. 

Microscopic examination showed that 
the crystals that were not affected by the 
chemical mixture retained their original 
cubic form, but the magnetized crystals 
assumed a hexagon shape. 

“Life" first appeared in the center and 
spread until the crystals assumed a globu¬ 
lar shape. 

Dr. Littlefield has not yet determined 
whether the germs will propagate. 


PROBLEM OF RESTORING THE DEAD TO LIFE. 


Two German scientists, working inde¬ 
pendently of each other, have taken the 
first steps in the great problem of restor¬ 
ing the dead to life, and the results of 
their remarkable experiments have roused 
the interest of physiologists and medical 
men generally. The two physiologists in 
question are Drs. Kuliabko and Herzen, 
and their experiments have been made 
respectively with the heart and the brain. 

Ever since the discovery was made a 
few years ago that life is a mechanical 
process, physiologists have been speculat¬ 
ing upon the possibility of restoring the 
dead. Scientists first began their experi¬ 
ments upon the heart, because the beating 
of the heart and the pumping of liquids 
through the body seemed to be the most 
important of the functions by which life 
was sustained. The problem seemed to 
resolve itself into the question, How can 
a heart that has once ceased beating be 
made to resume its pulsations? The 


heart, it was claimed, was only a pump, 
and if the pump was mechanically in good 
order there seemed to be no reason why 
its valves should not be set going again. 

HEART MUSCLE FORMS A THIRD 
CLASS. 

The first experiments made in this di¬ 
rection were upon the muscular fibers of 
that organ. The heart seems to be com¬ 
posed of muscle quite different from all 
the other muscles of the body. Heart 
muscle, it is held, occupies a special place 
of its own in the muscular system, be¬ 
cause, while it is not what, is called volun¬ 
tary muscle, yet it is different in structure 
from involuntary muscle, and men have 
been known who could regulate the beat¬ 
ing of the heart at will. 

Experiments with heart muscle fibers 
gave good results, and the fibers were 
made to beat in salt solutions. These ex¬ 
periments were made chiefly upon fibers 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


77 


taken from the bodies of newly dead ani¬ 
mals. But it has remained for Dr. Ku- 
liabko to resuscitate the hearts of human 
beings dead for several days. He experi¬ 
mented with the entire organ itself and 
succeeded in causing perfect pulsation for 
a long time. 

Dr. Kuliabko claims that there is a 
great difference between the vitality of 
mammals and of lower animals. The 
tissue of the former, he holds, possesses 
much more vitality, and therefore mam¬ 
mals take longer to die. Men’s bodies, 
he says, die one part first, then another, 
and parts of the bodily machine keep on 
moving long after other parts have 
stopped, and even the separate and in¬ 
dividual organs of the body die piece¬ 
meal. 

Thus the heart does not stop beating 
all at once. One part of it stops first and 
then another, until finally all action in 
the organ has ceased. It has been found 
that the left ventricle is the first to stop 
and then the right, the auricles following. 
When the dead heart is started going 
again the action begins in the reverse 
order. No difference can be detected in 
the action of the resuscitated heart and 
that of a heart of a living man. 

RESTORES BEATS TO HUMAN 
HEARTS. 

The physiologist began his experi¬ 
ments on the hearts of rabbits and birds 
newly dead. These, he found, readily 
responded to action of the solution he 
passed through them. Then he took the 
hearts of rabbits and birds that had been 
dead for a day or two, and still succeeded 
in restoring the action. Next he worked 
upon the hearts of animals that had been 


dead for five days and succeeded equally 
well. 

He now undertook to enlarge his ex¬ 
periments and to try the effects of his 
solution upon the human heart. The 
heart of a child that had died of pneu¬ 
monia was fully restored, and the regular 
pulsations maintained for more than an 
hour. In one case, where the heart had 
long since passed into marked rigor of 
death, Kuliabko succeeded in fully re¬ 
storing the organ to action in all of its 
parts and in maintaining the regular, 
rhythmic pulsation for a long time. 



Compressed air mail tube carrying letters and 
small packages from one mail station to 
another in the cities. 


He found also that the disease of which 
the patient died had much to do with the 
success or failure of the attempt at resus¬ 
citation. In pneumonia, cholera in¬ 
fantum, bronchitis, and catarrhal compli¬ 
cations the results were good and the 
heart readily responded where the solu¬ 
tion was applied. But in other complica¬ 
tions less satisfaction was obtained. 

Scientific men are never enthusiastic 
and never premature in jumping at con¬ 
clusions or in making sweeping state¬ 
ments, but these astonishing facts are ad¬ 
mitted to be a distinct step in the experi¬ 
mentation that has been going forward 
with respect to restoring the function of 
the heart after death. Kuliabko has ac¬ 
tually made the human heart resume its 














78 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


pulsation when that pulsation had been 
stopped for days. 

STARTING BRAIN MORE 
DIFFICULT. 

This is only the first step, however. 
The second step is more difficult still, but 
it would appear that Dr. Herzen has 
made it. The most important part of the 
complex machine called the human body 
is the central nervous system. The heart 
may be perfectly healthy, the pump in 
perfect order, but in order to make it go, 
power must be applied to its mechanism. 
Power is furnished by the nervous sys¬ 
tem, and the main depot of that system is 
the brain. 

To start the brain going was found to 
be difficult, for it is a more delicately 
organized and more quickly decomposing 
organ than most others. Actual chemical 
decomposition takes place soon after so- 
called death, and certain acids are devel¬ 
oped by decomposition which permanent¬ 
ly destroy the fine machinery of the 
brain. It would appear that Dr. Herzen 
has solved this difficulty. 

The heart works by the centractility of 


the protoplasm in the cells of which it 
is built up. And all that Kuliabko did 
was to start that protoplasm into action. 
Herzen argued that if the protoplasm of 
the muscle cell could be resuscitated by 
setting up in it the circulation of some 
fluid, there was no reason why the same 
thing could not be done with the cells of 
the brain, and he began his experiments 
on that assumption. 

AWAKENS BRAIN OF DEAD 
RABBIT. 

He has succeeded in restoring the me¬ 
chanical action of the brain of dead rab¬ 
bits by renewing the circulation in the 
dead brain. The brain will work if a salt 
solution be poured into it. So that Her¬ 
zen in starting up a dead brain has done 
away with the theory that chemical de¬ 
composition forever destroys the mechan¬ 
ical power of the brain the moment a 
man is dead. Such, at least, is the opinion 
of even conservative physiologists, who, 
a short time ago, would have scarcely en¬ 
tertained the suggestion of such a thing 
being possible. 


SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS IN BRINGING THE DEAD 

TO LIFE. 


The work of this scientist, Professor 
Elias P. Lyon of the University of Chi¬ 
cago, borders on the miraculous. He has 
succeeded in restoring life to a “dead” 
heart and has kept that vital organ beat¬ 
ing normally for seven hours after it was 
removed from the body to which it for¬ 
merly gave life. 

By anatomists and physiologists the 
feat is regarded as one of the most re¬ 


markable in the history of scientific re¬ 
search. For this heart, with which the 
experiment was conducted, not only kept 
up its pulsation, but continued to pump 
a large volume of blood during all the 
time it was in action. 

The successful experiment has given 
Professor Lyon and his associates reason 
to ask if death can not be deferred by 
the same means which kept this heart 




Diagram - THE- MILK IS 
PpV'RtD IN AT A ANLI SPRAYS FROM THE 
PlPE BC UPON THE TWO MfiTAl. CYLINDERS 
Kg THESE CYLINDERS ARE. HEATED 
BY 5TtftM To ABOUT 2iO“ f=. AMD 
Revolve slowly in direction of - / 
The arrows . the milk from the- ' 
5PRAY5 dries in a thin uniform 
Layer which is removed by 
the umife edges which scraps; 
THE* cylinders sending off the 
Powder in a coNrirjogus sheet, .... 


A HUGH 

XtStiE? 


2 % ounces or 
Milk Powder 


Ome Piht or 

Whole JMilk 

Yields 


view of the machine 

SHOWING STEAM- OUTLETS 
FROM CYLINDERS 


Machinery for condensing milk into solid form. The milk is deprived of its water without 
the loss of nutritive qualities. At the same time all bacteria germs and spores are 
destroyed by the high temperature of the cylinders. The drying capacity of the 
machine is seventy gallons per hour. 















































80 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


beating. They believe they will be able 
to prolong life and keep a heart removed 
from the body beating indefinitely. 

Professor Lyon, in connection with 
Professor Jacques Loeb, had previously 
proved that the heart was independent of 
the central nervous system. He decided 
that the only condition necessary for 
causing it to live after being removed 
from the body was to have it circulate 
blood through itself that it might extract 
therefrom sufficient food to keep it from 
weakening. When this condition could 
be met and the blood prevented from 
coagulating within the vascular passages 
he was satisfied that heart action could 
be maintained. 

In a test which lasted from noon until 
7 o’clock in the evening he proved his 
theory. How the heart was able to work 
automatically and how its rate of pulsa¬ 
tion may be easily controlled was clearly 
shown. 

In his experiment Professor Lyon used 
the heart of a dog. The lungs were left 
connected with the heart. After the ani¬ 
mal was killed it required twenty min¬ 
utes' time to remove the heart and lungs. 
It took still more time to cleanse the 
heart. Then came the task of defibrinat- 
ing the blood—that is, removing the co¬ 
agulating constituent. 

The heart, with the lungs attached, was 
laid upon a glass plate. It showed not 
the slightest sign of life. A rubber tube 
five feet long was attached to the aorta, 
the large artery which conveys the blood 
from the organ. This tube is looped 
and connected with the lungs. 

Professor Lyon then poured into the 
tube one quart of the blood, to which had 
been added a salt solutioVi. To the lungs 


was attached an air pump, and with this 
the lungs were filled. 

The heart lay dormant. It showed not 
the slightest inclination to resume action 
and it was, in fact, chilled by being ex¬ 
posed to the external air. 

Catching the rubber tube above the 
point where the small artery which feeds 
the heart joins the aorta, Professor Lyon 
pressed slightly, upon the artificial vessel 
and forced the defibrinated blood into the 
small artery leading to the heart. As 
soon as the blood penetrated the walls of 
the heart the organ began beating. 

With a slow irregular motion at first 
it began forcing the blood through the 
rubber tube into the lungs and back 
through the veins into the heart. Within 
a minute the pulse, which could readily 
be felt in the rubber tube, became more 
regular. The walls of the heart rose and 
fell with a steady and quickening throb. 
By the time the organ had beaten ioo 
times the motion was as regular and only 
a very little more retarded than that of 
the living animal. 

When the pulse of the heart became 
steady the lungs were again filled with 
air. The blood that passed through the 
circuit was returned purified by the air, 
just as it would have been in the living 
animal. 

STOPPING AND STARTING THE 
HEART. 

Many times during the afternoon Pro¬ 
fessor Lyon caused the heart to cease to 
beat. This he did by touching a small 
induction coil to the nerve which con¬ 
trols the heart. When this was done the 
organ palpitated, slowed its motion, and 
soon ceased beating. When it was de- 







REVELATIONS OE SCIENCE 


81 


sired to start the circulation again Pro¬ 
fessor Lyon pressed slightly on the rub¬ 
ber tube, forced the blood into the heart, 
and it resumed its action. 

During the course of the experiment 
attempts were made to determine the 
power of the heart as an engine. The 
three-eighths of an inch rubber tube was 
disconnected from the lungs and raised 
to a perpendicular position. The heart 
forced the fluid in a jet from the opening 
of the tube. 

Most of the time the organ was kept 
beneath a glass globe to keep it at an 
even temperature. At times the heart was 
exposed to a current of cold air. This 
apparently had a deleterious effect upon 
the heart action, perceptibly decreasing 
the rapidity and force of the pulse. 

While the experiment was designed to 
prove that the heart works independently 
of any control of the mind, it showed 
many other things of still more mysteri¬ 
ous and wonderful character. The ex¬ 
periment proved that so long as the blood 
can be kept from coagulating, and so long 
as there remains in the fluid any food to 
maintain the energy of the organ, it will 
work. When it has assimilated the life- 
giving properties in the fluid it pauses 
and “dies." 

Professor Lyon does not believe that a 
heart dies when the body is attacked by 
rigor mortis, or death. He believes a 
heart may be taken from the body, quick¬ 
ly and thoroughly cleansed with salt so¬ 
lution to prevent the coagulation of the 
blood and the damming of the capillaries, 
and that the organ can be started into 
action days after its removal from the 
body. 


DEATH MAY BE DEFERRED. 

Professor Lyon is not a dreamer. He 
has no weird idea of being able to cause 
man to live forever. He does not believe 
that animal life could be made perpetual. 
His experiments are conducted simply 
for the scientific truths they teach and 
for the new truths which they unfold. 
Yet he is confident that life can be rea¬ 
sonably prolonged, that in many in¬ 
stances death may be greatly deferred, 



‘Teddy,” who travels daily through an under¬ 
ground mail tube to show its efficiency as a 
carrier. 

especially where death results from a de¬ 
pletion of the blood supply. This he 
would do by filling the vessels with salt 
solution. 

“It has long been known that the heart 
of a turtle will show signs of life long 
after it has been removed from the body,” 
said Professor Lyon in talking of bis ex¬ 
periment. “I have held that this is true 
because the turtle’s heart works independ¬ 
ently of the central nervous system, and 
the same is true of the human heart. 

“The mind has an influence over the 
















82 


bo6k of the times 


heart, of course, for fear or our regular 
thoughts influence the heart action, but 
the heart does not depend upon the mind 
for its energy, or for the ability to keep 
up its action. 

“There is nothing new in my demon¬ 
stration that the heart can be made to 
show signs of life after it is removed 
from the body. But the circulation has 
not been reproduced artificially before 
nor has an artificial respiration been se¬ 
cured until I made my experiment. 


not say. We know what is done. We 
do not know how it is done. 

“We are approaching the time, if we 
have not already reached it, when we 
shall be able to defer death at will so far 
as the heart action is concerned. There 
are obstacles to this, but I see no reason 
why the heart action and the respiration 
could not be kept up artificially for an 
indefinite period with the heart remaining 
in the body. It would, of course, be 
necessary to cleanse all the blood vessels 



Peculiar method by which the place of an obstruction is located in long underground tubes. 


“We cannot tell where these experi¬ 
ments will lead us. There is a great void 
through which we must go blindly. Be¬ 
yond it we will find out all man could 
care to know. I am satisfied we will be 
able to solve the great secret of life, for 
we have solved it in so far as its con¬ 
tinuance is concerned. We are exploding 
the old ideas and theories day by day. I 
have just proved that the heart goes of 
its own accord so long as it is properly 
fed. Whence comes this energy I can- 


just as I have done in this experiment. 
Death, absolute death of the body, would 
ensue before that could he accomplished. 
But 1 believe that some sort of heart ac¬ 
tion could be maintained after the death 
of the body. 

SALT AS THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 

“By the use of salt solution we can 
prolong life to some extent. There is 
one kind of bleeding to death that is not 
generally understood. It is a gradual 


















83 


REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


depletion of the blood supply. The ves¬ 
sels are not filled with fluid and death en¬ 
sues. If we inject a sufficient quantity 
of salt solution to fill the blood vessels 
we overcome the deficiency and the heart 
continues its pulsation. Without a com¬ 
plication the heart will continue to act as 
long as there is life-giving food in the 
blood. When that supply is exhausted 
we have death. 


“The experiment I conducted success¬ 
fully with the heart of a dog could be 
conducted equally well with the heart of 
a. human. We are only at the beginning. 
Do you not see how wonderful are the 
possibilities? We can hold out no vain 
hope to man to expect to be endowed 
with an everlasting mundane life, but we 
have something now to work from which 
is almost terrifying in its possibilities.” 


THE MOST AMAZING, IF NOT THE GREATEST SCIEN¬ 
TIFIC DISCOVERY EVER MADE. 


ORIGIN OF RADIUM POSSIBLY 
WIDESPREAD IN THE MA¬ 
TERIAL UNIVERSE. 

No well authenticated discovery made 
in the last half century—not even that of 
the distance to which Hertz waves can be 
transmitted—has stimulated bolder con¬ 
jectures than have the announcements of 
M. and Mme. Curie. What will be the 
outcome of this speculation cannot now 
be foretold, but already a number of 
amazing guesses and theories have been 
inspired by the properties of radium, con¬ 
sidered apart from the other phenomena 
of nature. 

Professor Rutherford, of Montreal, 
has created a sensation while lecturing 
before a scientific audience in Lon¬ 
don by suggesting that the earth is 
much younger than astronomers and 
physicists have believed. That pos¬ 
sibility had occurred to him in conse¬ 
quence of observing the rapid rate at 
which radium decays.' Supposing this to 
be uniform, he estimates that all which is 
at present in existence will have disin¬ 
tegrated in a thousand years, and that all 


which existed a thousand years ago must 
now have become transformed into some¬ 
thing else—helium, perhaps. Professor 
Joly, of Dublin, reaches an astonishingly 
different conclusion concerning the 
earth’s age, by confining his attention to 
the behavior of another metal, uranium. 
It has been observed in a laboratory that 
this metal apparently breaks down, but 
much more slowly than radium. Of a 
given amount of uranium only a ten- 
thousand-millionth part decays in a year. 
Adopting that element as a standard, 
then, the Irish physicist savs that 10,000,- 
000,000 years may be regarded “a minor 
limit to the antiquity of matter in our 
part of the universe.” Rutherford and 
Joly cannot both be right, apparently, and 
perhaps neither of them is. Lord Kel¬ 
vin's estimate of the time which has 
elapsed since the globe cooled suf¬ 
ficiently to sustain animal and vegetable 
life was between 10,000,000 and 20.000,- 
000. Even the most exacting biologists 
and geologists demand more than 100,- 
000,000. Professor Joly’s guess exceeds 
these others a hundred or a thousand 
fold! 





84 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ORIGIN OF RADIUM. 

A good deal of attention is now being 
given to the probable origin of radium. 
Whether the element, while still inter¬ 
mingled with other substances in the ores 
in which it is found, undergoes change 
as rapidly as it does after separation, is 
a question not yet answered. However, 
whether its fixity is greater in the one 
case than in the other, grave doubts of its 
permanence are entertained by most of 
the men who are now studying the ele¬ 
ment. A possibility which has occurred 
to several minds almost simultaneously 
is that radium is a product of uranium. 
The two were invariably associated in the 
pitchblende from which the Curies ex¬ 
tracted radium. Dr. Bertram B. Bolt- 
wood, of Yale University, has made tests 
with various ores that lead him to think 
that the quantities present always bear 
the same relation to each other. W. C. D. 
Whetham, of Cambridge, England, says 
that every time he has obtained what was 
sold to him as a pure salt of uranium he 
would find traces of radium in it. He 
has also examined specimens of uranium 
compounds that have been preserved in 
the Cambridge laboratory for periods 
ranging from seventeen to twenty-five 
years, and in every instance they con¬ 
tained radium. 

Finally, Frederick Soddy, who cooper¬ 
ated with Rutherford in some of the lat¬ 
ter's earlier work, but is now identified 
with University College in Fondon, re¬ 
ports in “Nature” a set of experiments 
which he is now conducting. He ob¬ 
tained a thousand grams of uranium 
nitrate twelve months ago. He purified 
it so that he could detect the presence of 
only a microscopic trace of radium. The 


proportion which the amount of the lat¬ 
ter bore to the mass of the former would 
be represented with a “i” preceded by a 
decimal point and sixteen ciphers. At the 
end of a year Mr. Soddy tested again, 
and found a little more, but not as much 
as he thought he should have obtained if 
the added quantity came from uranium. 
There may have been something wrong 
with his test, or else with his computa¬ 
tions, and Mr. Soddy will continue the 
observations from time to time. Inas¬ 
much as the amount of radium discovered 
at the end of the year was only a ten- 
thousandth part of that which his and Sir 
William Ramsay’s theories promised, he 
says: “This practically settles the ques¬ 
tion so far as the production of radium 
is concerned. . . . The result, of 

course, may be explained by assuming 
the existence of intermediate forms be¬ 
tween uranium and radium. But . . . 

several such hypothetical forms, each 
with an extended life, must be assumed. 
So that, unless modifications are made in 
the theory which at present are not justi¬ 
fiable, the evidence may be taken as indi¬ 
cating that uranium is not the parent ele¬ 
ment of radium.” 

Rutherford, in a recent book, published 
before Mr. Soddy's letter appeared in 
“Nature," said: “Since radium has a 
short life, compared with that of ura¬ 
nium, the amount of radium produced 
should reach a maximum after a few 
thousand years, when the rate of produc¬ 
tion of fresh radium—which is also a 
measure of the rate of change of uranium 
—balances the rate of change of that 
product” (into helium). 

Professor Joly, after briefly indicating 
the improbability that radium may be the 





REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


S5 


offspring of thorium, suggests that it 
may not result directly and solely from 
decay. Perhaps it may be a combination 
of the radio-active products of some dis¬ 
integrating element with one of the many 
substances found in pitchblende. Parti¬ 
cles and properties derived from either 
uranium or thorium might have united 
with bismuth or barium, for instance. 
“Thus radium would represent the syn¬ 
thesis, not the decomposition, of an ele¬ 
ment,” Professor Joly adds. He there¬ 
fore advises that a watch for the genesis 
of the new element in pitchblende and 
allied minerals be undertaken. 

RADIUM ON OTHER PLANETS. 

How extensively radium now exists, or 
has existed, in other celestial bodies than 
the earth is a question of profound inter¬ 
est both to astronomers and chemists. If 
positive information on this point could 
be obtained it might aid the experts in 
determining its origin and history in the 
globe. There has been a disposition to 
take it for granted that the stars are all 
composed of substantially the same ma¬ 
terials. By the spectroscope it has been 
possible to identify with certainty nearly 
forty terrestrial elements in the sun. 
Lockyer thought that he saw evidence of 
several others—uranium among them— 
in the same luminous envelope of vapor. 
What is contained at greater depths can 
only be conjectured, but positive recog¬ 
nition of more than half of the elements 
found on the earth is certainly suggest¬ 
ive. A still more impressive fact is that 
a large number of stars—which astron¬ 
omers say are also suns—give a spectrum 
like the great body on which the earth is 


dependent for light and heat. Arcturus 
and Capella are notable representatives 
of this “soiar” type of stars. 

Other types are characterized by dif¬ 
ferent spectra from this one. Instead of 
showing the lines of calcium, iron, so¬ 
dium and nearly two-score other metals, 
they betray the presence of little except 
helium and hydrogen gases. The sus¬ 
picion is entertained, however, that the 
dissimilarity indicates differences in tem¬ 
perature only, and not of composition. 
Although the astronomers are not in per¬ 
fect harmony concerning the meaning of 
the lack of agreement in stellar spectra, 
many of them look at the intensely white 
stars, which give a helium or hydrogen 
spectrum, as younger and hotter than the 
yellow, or “solar,” stars; whereas the 
red, or “carbon,” stars are considered 
cooler and perhaps older than any of the 
others. The practical unity of the ma¬ 
terial of which the whole visible universe 
is constructed is held to be possible, if 
not probable; and hence the particular 
elements which are the most conspicuous 
in any one group are accepted as indica¬ 
tions of the stage of development at¬ 
tained by the members of that family. 

RADIUM IN THE SUN. 

No one has yet found evidence of the 
presence of radium in the sun. That fact 
proves little, though. Radium is one of 
the heaviest elements known. Astronom¬ 
ical spectroscopists have suggested that 
the failure to detect platinum, thorium 
and iridium in the sun and the dubious 
indications given concerning uranium 
may be due to their great weight. The 
same explanation would apply to radium. 





86 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


There is almost as much reason for think¬ 
ing that the latter exists in the sun and 
the other stars as there is to imagine that 
they contain platinum and uranium. The 
chief doubt is suggested by the belief of 
Sir William Ramsay that radium is an 
exceedingly “unstable” element, that the 
helium which has been obtained from it 
in a few instances was really a product 
of transformation, and that the gas was 
not simply liberated from a previous as¬ 
sociation with the metal. Of course, if 
all the radium which ever existed in the 
universe has now been converted into 
helium, and if a new stock of radium is 
not being manufactured out of other ma¬ 
terials, then the supply has given out en¬ 
tirely. However, neither of these sup¬ 
positions is yet warrantable. So long as 
one must rely on guesses alone, he is ex¬ 
cusable for thinking that many other 
bodies besides the earth contain radium, 
though they do not show it. The case for 
transmutation has not been established, 
but even if it had been the theory would 
be applicable to the fresh manufacture as 
well as the disappearance of this strange 
element. 

Whether or not the helium now ob¬ 
served in many of the stars has resulted 
from the decay of another element or has 
maintained its individuality as long as 
its associates, it is found in many of the 
nebulae and in certain bodies which are 
involved in “cosmic fog.” In these facts 
some astronomers find a hint that the 
Pleiades, the brighter orbs in Orion and 
certain other conspicuous helium stars 
are of comparatively recent birth, and 
that younger sisters are even now being 
developed out of the same chaotic and 
tenuous mist. 


AMOUNT AND POWER OF 
RADIUM. 

Sir William Ramsay, foremost of liv- 

J 7 

ing chemists, says: 

“All previous calculations in science 
are likely to be upset by radium. We may 
soon be compelled to revise some of the 
theories of physics that are now regarded 
as cardinal. Nobody can tell. The fu¬ 
ture open to the diligent laboratory stu¬ 
dent is fraught with mysteries. One 
thing is certain—nobody is likely to dis¬ 
cover a mine of radium. Some state- 
ments made about the quantity of that 
precious substance in existence are ab¬ 
surd. 

“I do not suppose there is one-tenth of 
an ounce of radium in the whole world. 
If you can imagine getting that amount 
of radium together, it would supply more 
energy than 250 tons of dynamite.” 

LATEST THEORIES OF RADIUM. 

Radium is an element of extraordinary 
density. On account of this density, or, 
perhaps, on account of some other pecu¬ 
liarity of its constitution, the atoms of 
radium may not be so readily permeable 
by the ether as are the atoms of other 
substances. We may suppose that the 
radium which it contains presents a re¬ 
sistance to the ether. The particles of 
radium, being impermeable to the uni¬ 
versal medium, act like small closed sur¬ 
faces scattered through an otherwise per¬ 
fectly penetrable sieve, and which set up 
a resistance when the sieve is moved, in 
proportion to their size. 

Now, the motion arrested by an atom 
of radium is not destroyed, but simply 
transformed. It becomes energy within 
the atom, stored up there, only to be radi- 






The Lamas or priests of Tibet. Their dress consists of gorgeous silk robes and long 
strings of beads, with little bells on the end which make a curious jingling sound 
as the men walk about. 


















88 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


atecl out again in a form which may ap¬ 
pear partly as heat and partly as electric¬ 
ity. Thus the strange power of a radio¬ 
active particle to keep itself constantly at 
a temperature several degrees above that 
of its surroundings, and to pour forth, 
without ceasing and without any percept¬ 
ible source of supply, streams of energy, 
would be accounted for without any vio¬ 
lation of the great law of equivalence 
which lies at the foundation of science. 

The question may occur to the reader: 
“If the radio-active substances in the 
earth offer a resistance to the ether, why 
is not the earth brought to rest?” 

No doubt the earth would be brought 
to rest upon this theory, if it consisted 
wholly, or in large part, of radium. But 
in fact there appears to be, relatively 
to its whole mass, but an infinitesimal 
quantity of radium in the globe, and so 
the retardation effected by it is imper¬ 
ceptible. On the other hand it is clear 
that if the earth should come to rest all 
of the radium it contains would quickly 
lose its energy, because the source of 
supply would he cut off. 

There is another interesting applica¬ 
tion of this hypothesis. As many read¬ 
ers are aware, there is one of the periodi¬ 
cal comets returning to perihelion every 
few years—Encke’s, which for a long 
time has shown evidence of retardation, 
as if it were moving through a resisting 
medium. This peculiar conduct of 
Encke's comet has been a very puzzling 
phenomenon, because other comets do not 
exhibit a similar tendency. But suppose 
Encke’s comet to consist mainly of 
radium; then, by the theory we are con¬ 
sidering, we should expect it to be re¬ 
tarded in its motion through the ether. 


As long as the real facts about such a 
mystery as radium remain unknown we 
have only the scientific imagination to 
lead the way to their discovery. And 
even in its errors the scientific imagina¬ 
tion may present pictures as alluring as 
any that were born from the teeming 
brain of Shakespeare. 

THE DISCOVERY OF POLONIUM. 

Polonium, the new element which has 
been exploited in a series of most inter¬ 
esting experiments by Prof. W. Mark- 
well before the chemical congress in Ber¬ 
lin, is really the discovery of a woman— 
one of the most learned women in the 
world, and one who is today recognized 
as among the truly great pioneers of 
chemistry. Married to a Frenchman, she 
is a Pole by birth, and it was patriotism 
that led her to give to her new discovery 
the name by which the world now knows 
it—polonium. 

Scientists as yet understand too little 
of the marvelous properties of this new 
element to venture more than vague pre¬ 
dictions of what spheres of future useful¬ 
ness it may fill; but it is not improbable 
that it may be found to perform the pres¬ 
ent functions of the co-called Roentgen 
or X-rays far more powerfully and with¬ 
out the cumbrous apparatus now essential 
to their use. 

OUTDOES EVEN RADIUM. 

In a much higher degree even than 
radium it possesses the property of shin¬ 
ing in the dark, and, although it is known 
that actual particles, infinitesimally small, 
are being shot out from it continually—a 
fact which is proved by magnetic experi- 




REVELATIONS OE SCIENCE 


80 


merits—this strange substance does not 
seem to exhaust itself nor lose its lumi¬ 
nous powers with the passage of time. 
Here, therefore, is a hint at least of the 
future possibility of a constant and bril¬ 
liant illuminant generated without heat 
or combustion. 

As a result of the discovery of this 
woman, Mme. Curie, she and her hus¬ 
band and a few chosen associates are en¬ 
joying at present a practical monopoly of 
a treasure mine richer far than one of 


gold or diamonds. Polonium is more 
valuable than radium, and Prof. Curie 
himself, who has a chemically pure speci¬ 
men of radium not larger than a buck¬ 
shot and weighing less than half a grain, 
would not sell it for $20,000. Strangely 
enough, the substance from which these 
precious grains of polonium are extracted 
is pitchblende, a sort of by-product found 
in Austria and heretofore regarded as 
valueless after it had been used for the 
extraction of uranium. 


THE THEORY THAT MATTER IS A FORM OF 

ELECTRICITY. 


SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF 
ELECTRONS. 

Electricity is not a form of energy any 
more than water is a form of energy. 
Water may be a vehicle of energy when 
at a high level or in motion; so may 
electricity. Electricity cannot be manu¬ 
factured, as heat can; it can only be 
moved from place to place, like water; 
and its energy must be in the form of 
motion or of strain. Electricity under 
strain constitutes “charge”; electricity in 
locomotion constitutes a current and mag¬ 
netism; electricitv in vibration constitutes 
light. What electricity itself is we do 
not know, but it may perhaps be a form 
or aspect of matter. So have taught for 
thirty years the disciples of Clerk-Max¬ 
well. 

Now we can go one step further and 
say matter is composed of electricity, and 
of nothing else. 

First we must ask what is positive elec¬ 
tricity, and the answer is still we do not 
know. We may not even guess—beyond 
supposing it to be a mode of manifesta¬ 


tion, or a differentiated portion, of the 
continuous and all-pervading ether. It 
seems to exist in lumps the size of the 
atoms of matter; and no portion of it less 
in bulk than an atom has ever been iso¬ 
lated, nor appears likely to be isolated. 

But concerning negative electricity we 
know a great deal more. This exists in 
excessively minute particles, sometimes 
called electrons and sometimes called 
corpuscles; these are thrown off the neg¬ 
atively charged terminal in a vacuum 
tube, and they fly with tremendous speed 
till they strike something. When they 
strike they can propel as well as heat the 
target, and they can likewise make it emit 
a phosphorescent glow, especially if it be 
made of glass or precious stones. If the 
target is a very massive metal like plat¬ 
inum, the sudden stoppage of the flying 
electrons which encounter it causes the 
production of the ethereal pulses known 
as X-rays. Electrons are not very easy 
to stop, however; and a fair proportion 
of them can penetrate not only wood and 
paper, but sheets of such metals as alum- 





90 


BOOK OF TFIE TIMES 


inum and other moderately thin obsta¬ 
cles. That is because they are extremely 
small—much smaller than the atoms of 
matter. 

Each electron has a definite charge of 
electricity—viz., the same charge as is 
conveyed by each single atom when a 


tained, and we have reason for asserting 
that no other kind exists. 

CAUSE OF ELECTRIC CURRENTS. 

Electric currents are always due to the 
locomotion of these little electric charges; 
they permeate and make their way 
through metals, being handed on from 



Potala, the Dalai Lama’s grand palace of the hitherto forbidden city of Lassa, Tibet. 
The scene of the signing of the treaty with Tibet: The golden-domed Potala, the pal¬ 
ace of the fugitive Dalai Lama. The Potala is built on a bluff rock north of the city 
of Lassa. It is described as surpassing the most sanguine expectations. “Its golden 
domes,” writes Mr. Edmund Candler, “shone in the sun like tongues of fire, making 
it a landmark for miles around. It must strike with awe and veneration the hearts 
of pilgrims arriving from the barren table-lands to visit the Sacred City.” The British 
treaty with Tibet was signed in the Dalai Lama's apartments in this building on 
September 7, 1904. 


current is passed though a chemically 
conducting liquid. Every electron has 

also a definite and uniform mass, which 
is about 1/800th of that of an atom of 
hydrogen—hitherto the lightest known 
form of matter. 

From every kind of material the same 
and no other kind of electron can be ob- 


one atom to the next, as a fire-bucket is 
passed from hand to hand. This is metal¬ 
lic conduction. Liquid conduction is dif¬ 
ferent ; the electrons travel with the atoms 
in liquids, and hence travel slowly, being 
jostled by the crowd, and being laden 
with the heavy atom which they convey 
or propel, as a pony (or a flea—in mass 














REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


91 


a pony, but in bulk a flea) might drag 
a heavy wagon through crowded streets, 
until at the terminal station it is unhar- 
nessed and allowed to trot into its stable, 
which is what happens when the bound¬ 
ary between liquid and metallic conduc¬ 
tors is reached. Electrons become still 
more emancipated, however, in rarefied 
gases, which act as a cleared race-course, 
or like a free range for flight; and then 
it is possible to find them, flying at pro¬ 
digious speed, even as high as 100,000 
miles a second, and sometimes faster still, 
but never quite so fast as light. 

CAUSE OF RADIATION. 

Whenever an electron is suddenly 
started or stopped, or made to turn a 
corner, it disturbs the ether through 
which it had been quietly moving and ex¬ 
cites a ripple in it. These ethereal ripples 
constitute radiation, and the best-known 
variety of them we call “light.'' With 
this we have been familiar for a long 
time, because of our happening to possess 
eyes—instruments for the ready apprecia 
tion of ethereal ripples. We used not to 
know the reason, however, for the pro¬ 
duction of light. We know now that it 
is due to the sudden change of motion, 
either in speed or direction, of an elec¬ 
tron ; and probably to no other cause. 

The charge in an electron is very small, 
but is extremely concentrated—that is to 
say, it exists only as a very minute nu¬ 
cleus; and in order to explain the mani¬ 
festation of the observed mass of 1/800th 
part of a hydrogen atom by so trifling a 
quantity of electricity it is necessary to 
suppose that it is concentrated into a 
space one-hundred-thousandth of the 
diameter of a material atom. This is the 
size which is at present accepted for an 


electron. It is quite the smallest thing 
known. 

Matter, then, appears to be composed 
of positive and negative electricity, and 
nothing else. All its newly discovered 
as well as all its long-known properties 
can thus be explained—even the long¬ 
standing puzzle of “cohesion" shows 
signs of giving way. The only outstand¬ 
ing still intractable physical property is 
“gravitation," and no satisfactory theory 
of the nature of gravitation has been so 
far forthcoming. I doubt, however, if 
it is far away. It would seem to be a 
slight but quite uniform secondary or 
residual effect due to the immersion of 
a negative electron in a positive atmos¬ 
phere. 

ELECTRICITY AS AN ANAES¬ 
THETIC. 

Dr. S. Ledue of the Academy of Medi¬ 
cine, Paris, is confident that he has dis¬ 
covered in electricity a substitute for the 
°reat anaesthetics, chloroform and ether. 

Necessarily, surgeons all over the 
world will be vastly interested should 
electricity prove to be a certain and safe 
anaesthetic, for chloroform, even when 
administered with the greatest caution, 
sometimes kills by its depressing action 
on the heart, and it is often most incon¬ 
venient to give ether, especially in surgi¬ 
cal operations on the mouth and throat. 

TRIES IT ON A DOG. 

Dr. Ledue began his experiments on 
dogs, rabbits and pigeons. He employed 
a current of from ten to thirty volts, 
which he interrupted from 100 to 200 
times a second. He sent this current 
through the brain of the animal or bird 
on which he was experimenting by apply- 
- ing one electrode on the top of the head 



92 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


and the other at the posterior base of the 
skull. 

In no case did more than ten minutes 
elapse before the subject was completely 
anaesthetized. They recovered imme¬ 
diately when the current ceased, and not 
one showed any evil effect. 

SUBMITS TO TEST ON HIMSELF. 

So confident was Dr. Ledue that this 
was a harmless and sure method to pro¬ 
duce senselessness to pain that he sub¬ 
mitted himself to the experiment. An as¬ 
sistant placed one electrode on the doc¬ 
tor’s forehead and the other over his 
spine in the lumbar region, so that the 
mild but quickly interrupted current was 
sent through his cerebrum, cerebellum 
and spinal cord. 

In less than ten minutes Dr. Ledue was 
perfectly anaesthetized. He did not feel 
the prick of needles nor the burn of a red- 
hot iron, nor did the pupil of his eye re¬ 
spond to irritation. When the current 
was shut off he recovered consciousness 
instantly, and so far from experiencing 
bad effects he declared he felt as if he had 
taken a tonic. 

THE DYNELECTRON. 

A recent invention, which is said to 
have for its object “the generation of 
electricity direct from the elements, heat, 
air, and water, without the intervention 
of either steam boiler, engine, or dyna¬ 
mo,” is described at considerable length 
in a magazine published in the interests 
of the wireless telegraph system. 

This new marvel of science and inven¬ 
tion is called the dynelectron. If the 
claims for it are realized it will “ultimate¬ 


ly displace the use of steam in the crea¬ 
tion of power wherever it is now used.” 

The inventor of the dynelectron is 
James H. Reid, an engineer associated 
with the Westinghouse and General 
Electric companies. In his descriptions 
of the marvels accomplished and to be 
accomplished by his new invention Mr. 
Reid assures the public that within a 
short time the dynelectron will supersede 
the present cumbersome locomotives on 
all the railroads of the country. 

No trolley wires or third rails will be 
needed, as the dynelectron will itself cre¬ 
ate the electricity needed to propel the 
train and will send the current to the mo¬ 
tors connected with the axles of the cars. 

1 he cost of operation of all electric and 
steam railways, according to Mr. Reid, 
will be thus cut in two. 

For light and power plants the dyne¬ 
lectron has an equally brilliant future 
predicted for it. Engines, dynamos, and 
boilers are to he superseded by the new 
device for generating electricity, since 
fully half of the present expense of oper¬ 
ating an electric plant will be saved. Mr. 
Reid even declares the new invention can 
be attached to any furnace and made to 
furnish the electric current for lighting 
private residences at a cost within the 
reach of all. 

While many of the extravagant claims 
in the Marconigram remind us of 
“thoughtless thinks by wireless tele¬ 
graph,” the description of the dynelec¬ 
tron itself conveys a hope that another 
important step toward the solution of the 
problem of making electricity direct from 
coal, without the intervention of steam, 
has been taken. 

The invention consists of a huge tat- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


03 


tery composed of carbon and iron in a 
mixture of chemicals, which, when 
sprayed with water, furnished with a 
blast of air, and heated to 350 or 400 
degrees, will give off a current of elec¬ 
tricity. Tests have proceeded to the point 
where the business associates of the in¬ 
ventor say they are about to install two 
commercial plants of considerable size. 

The problem of producing electricity 
directly from coal is recognized as one of 
the most important, from a commercial 


viewpoint, confronting the industrial 
world. Inventors of great ability all over 
the world are working upon it. Scores 
of devices of merit have been brought 
out by these men and considerable prog¬ 
ress has been made by them. While it is 
unlikely that the dynelectron is the much 
sought for invention, it is possible that it 
will help in the ultimate discovery. And 
when the latter comes many of the claims 
now made for the dynelectron will be 
realized. 


THE ASTRONOMY OF ATOMS REVEALED BY RADIUM. 


The new theory of matter now being 
developed by Professor Lodge and others 
may be called the astronomy of atoms. 

It shows that what has always hereto¬ 
fore been regarded as the smallest di¬ 
vision of matter known to nature—the 
atom—is really composed of a multitude 
of infinitely smaller things named elec¬ 
trons, which revolve about one another 
within the confines of the atom in paths 
resembling the orbits of the earth and 
the other planets composing the solar 
system, and that instead of being packed 
closely the revolving electrons in an atom 
have proportionately as much free space 
about them as exists between Mars, Jupi¬ 
ter, Saturn and the other members of the 
solar system. 

Thus the body of a man composed of 
innumerable atoms may be likened to the 
universe in that it is made up of a vast 
number of systems almost infinitely small 
in comparison with its own dimensions. 
Moreover, the manner in which the elec¬ 
trons constituting an atom revolve about 
one another resembles the manner in 
which the planets, comets, asteroids and 


meteors of the solar system travel in their 
concentric and in some cases interlacing 
orbits, and the principles of celestial me¬ 
chanics, perfected by Newton, Laplace 
and other mathematicians to account for 
the motions of the heavenly bodies, avail 
to explain also the movements of the in¬ 
finitesimal electrons of which atoms con¬ 
sist. 

MATTER TRANSFORMED INTO 
ELECTRICITY. 

But these electrons, while they consti¬ 
tute the atoms of which all material sub¬ 
stances are made up, are not themselves 
conceived as being a form of matter. Ex¬ 
periment indicates that they are purely 
electric in their nature. Yet when com¬ 
bined in the shape of atoms they furnish 
the basis of what we know as matter. 

While only radium and a few cognate 
substances continually give off particles 
in sufficient abundance to reveal the fact 
to us, yet the theory under consideration 
assumes that all atoms of all substances 
whatever are slowly tending to dissipate 
themselves in this manner, and that in the 
course of infinite time the whole universe 





94 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


will thus he changed in its atomic con¬ 
stitution over and over again through the 
alternate dissociation of atoms and their 
reformatio in new combinations. 

Already it has proved possible to cal¬ 
culate the number of electrons contained 
in various kinds of atoms—for instance, 
seven hundred in an atom of hydrogen, 
fifteen thousand in an atom of sodium, 


and more than one hundred thousand in 
an atom of mercury. 

Thus the number of electric worlds, if 
we may so speak of them, contained in 
the miniature solar system represented by 
an atom of mercury is far greater than 
that of all the known planets, asteroids 
and comets in the solar system in which 
we live. 


SUBSTANCE AND ELECTRICITY. 


CAN MATTER BE SUBDIVIDED 
TILL IT IS ONLY ENERGY? 

When matter is disintegrated into its 
final or corpuscular condition it is impos¬ 
sible to distinguish any difference be¬ 
tween the corpuscles and electricity. 
This is but one way of saying that the 
entire sidereal universe and everything in 
it is made of electricity. 

Electricity is matter beyond any doubt; 
but for years it has been called a mode 
of energy. This philosophy sounds like 
saying that matter and energy are identi¬ 
cal and both are included under one word 
—electricity. To get at this in another 
way, it may be said that no entity exists 
but electricity. If so, and it certainly 
looks that way, then the human mind is 
made of electricity, and electricity is 
matter. 

This brings us around to a point in 
Oriental speculation, 4,000 years in the 
distant past, when the wisest men the 
world has ever contained said over and 
over again that “thoughts are things.” 
This idea has never died out; for from 
that remote epoch some psychologists 
have kept the primeval belief alive. And 


the doctrine is at this moment spreading 
over the w r orld again with remarkable 
rapidity. Mail received here from all 
parts of the world contains this phrase 
repeatedly. “Thought pow r er: the force 
of thought”; “transmission of thought 
power” and similar sentences bristle in 
the books, papers and the multitudes of 
letters daily pouring into this observa¬ 
tory. Electricity assumes more forms 
than did Proteus of old. 

These “bodies smaller than atoms” 
have the property inertia, and other at¬ 
tributes of matter, yet none so far is able 
to tell us where they differ from elec¬ 
tricity. It may be well to state that some 
scientists assert that they are not electric, 
but no proof has been coming. 

Radium row in New York that was re¬ 
ceived from Paris in 1900 is still giving 
out heat and light. It therefore must re¬ 
ceive matter w’hich it transforms into 
heat; but if heat is electricity, and elec¬ 
tricity matter, then there is a flow of 
matter throughout all space; for the spec¬ 
troscope sees matter in the distant glow'- 
ing suns in all directions in the same 
phases we are familiar with here on our 
speck of earth. 




Hope of the Dying Soldier. 



























96 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SCIENTISTS MYSTIFIED. 

Chemists, physicists and electricians 
are working night and day to find what 
matter is, and psychologists are working 
also day and night to find what mind is. 
At the present stage of investigation it 
looks as though both are one and the 
same, and that the most common form in 
which they appear is electricity. 

The entire speculative portion of the 
scientific world is racking its brain striv¬ 
ing to interpret the flood of mysteries 
that is submerging the human mind with 
inscrutable problems. The intensity of 
gravity is well known, and it has been 
measured with accuracy. Thus: Two 
spheres, say of gold, lead or granite, 
whose weight is 463,915 tons each, and 
whose centres are one mile apart, would 
attract each other with a force of one 
pound. 

The electrical potential of that vast 
mass of corpuscles saturating all space, 
for long called “ether," has been com¬ 
puted; and there is a remarkable relation 
between them. The deductions are in¬ 
tensely mathematical and were made by 
Bergen Davis of Columbia University, 
and here are his conclusions in his own 
language: “This rather remarkable rela- 

THE ANCIENT BELIEF IN 

METALS 

Sir William Crookes, the inventor of 
the famous Crookes’ tube, which was 
used by Roentgen to produce his X-rays, 
is foremost among the chemists who 
claim that the metals, not only, but all 
the other elements, are convertible one 
into the other. 


tion between the gravitational constant 
and the constant of the ether is very sug¬ 
gestive. 

“It appears to me that this coincidence 
can hardly he accidental. If mass is elec¬ 
tromagnetic, the constant of mass attrac¬ 
tion might be expected to be related to 

the constants of the ether. The above re¬ 
sult not only suggests that matter is elec¬ 
trical in constitution, but that gravita¬ 
tional force is the same in kind if not in 
degree with electrical forces, and that 
they act in a common medium.” 

Scientists for years have now ar.d then 
written that gravity is probably electrical, 
and now it appears that mathematical 
proof is on the way. But man’s place in 
nature and his relation to matter, or 
“electricity,” is attracting attention all 
over the civilized world now. It is cer¬ 
tain that “finer forces” exist in the uni¬ 
verse of which man is at present ignor¬ 
ant. Thus: One of the most conserva¬ 
tive scientific men of England, “Sigma,” 
says; “The real question is just whether 
nature consists of Matter and Force—the 
known physical agencies—or whether it 
must not include another order of exist¬ 
ence, the psychical, to which is due those 
phenomena called Life and Mind.” 

THE TRANSMUTATION OF 
REVIVED. 

ON THE BORDERLAND. 

“We have come,” said Professor 
Crookes not long ago, “to the border¬ 
land where force and matter merge into, 
each other.” 

According to the theory held by these 
advanced chemists, it is not radium itself 





97 


REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


that causes the strange phenomena that 
occur in the presence of that element, but 
these phenomena are due to what the 
chemists call the “radio-activity” of the 
substance. When radium is obtained the 
element gives off rapidly a gas which, it 


chemistry that has so rapidly developed 
within the past few years. 

These facts, say the specialists, have 
the most important bearing on the ques¬ 
tion of the transmutation of the metals, 
and the time may come soon when gold 



The remains of a man of the Stone Age, discovered in Gough s Cave, Cheddar. The bones 
of a man of the Stone Age, with his weapons around him, were recently unearthed 


in Cheddar. A few feet away from the 1 
floor six inches thick, ran the cable by 
cave The flint knives and Hakes also 
photograph. 

is believed, is argon, or a number of gases 
belonging to the argon group. When 
the rau o-a r tivity dies down t Uo re is left 
a quantity of helium, but a slowly and 
constantly increasing quantity of that ele¬ 
ment. Argon and helium were only re¬ 
cently discovered, and they are two of the 
most interesting elements in the new 


emains, which were found under a stalagmite 
which the electric light was supplied to the 
found are shown in the foreground of the 

can be manufactured in any desired quan¬ 
tity by the use of the radio-activity proc¬ 
ess on a large scale. 

SUGGESTED BY YTTRIUM. 

This possibility was suggested by the 
peculiar conduct of yttrium, another 
newly discovered element which gave evi- 















98 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


clence in the spectroscope of changing 
itself into seven different metals, five of 
which were beyond the reach of the ordi¬ 
nary methods of chemical analysis. So 
that here, the physicists had under their 
eye a process by which a single metal 
was changed into seven different metals, 
all of them familiar to chemistry. 

This interesting process was practi¬ 
cally, so claimed the experts, a laying- 
bare of nature in the very act of manu¬ 
facturing in her own laboratory a number 
of metals which are quite costly when ob¬ 
tained by various methods of reduction 
from nature herself. 

The contention is made that nature is 
constantly at work trying to break down 
the heavy elements into lighter elements. 
All elements have what is called atomic 
weight. The atoms of all elements are 
measured by the weight of one atom of 
hydrogen used as a standard. 

NATURE’S PLAN REVERSED. 

Gold is a very heavy element. Com¬ 
pared with hydrogen its atomic weight is 
196. That is to say. gold weighs 196 
times the weight of hydrogen. The time 
was, say the chemists, when nature was 
reducing the lighter elements to heavier 
ones, when nature was making gold out 
of lighter substances. The effort of na¬ 
ture now seems to have been reversed. 


It is now trying to reduce the heavier ele¬ 
ments to lighter ones. But this conten¬ 
tion is really the admission of the more 
remote contention that there is some 
great primal element out of which all the 
elements are built up—the “element of 
elements” itself. This element of ele¬ 
ments has been called “protyle,” and in 
the wonderful transformations that seem 
to accompany the activity of yttrium and 
of radium, this substance protyle is rap¬ 
idly changed from one metal to three, 
four, five, six or seven metals, one after 
another or all at once. 

And here is where the practical man is 
very closely concerned with these some¬ 
what interesting phenomena. For, it is 
argued, if chemists can lay hold of this 
great primal element of protyle—some¬ 
thing which Professor Crookes seems to 
hint at when he says that chemistry is on 
the borderland where force merges into 
matter—it would appear that the problem 
of manufacturing gold is rapidly nearing 
its solution. 

A chemist in London recently sug¬ 
gested the probability that the money 
systems of the world might be seriously 
affected by these new advances in science, 
but he did not seem to regard the pros¬ 
pect from anything but a purely scientific 
point of view. 


SOLIDIFIED AIR. 


INCALCULABLE POWER READY 
FOR USE. 

At first the mention of solid air ap¬ 
peals to one’s sense of humor. The idea 
of being able to grasp a chunk of atmos¬ 
phere, and hurl it through itself, so to 


speak—throw it through space seems to 
be preposterous. Yet it is a fact, and a 
fact charged with a thousand important 
possibilities. 

The discovery of solid air was made 
by Prof. A. L. Metz of the Tulane Uni- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


99 


versity, Louisiana. The actual discovery 
was made a few years ago, but the ex¬ 
periments were far from complete, and 
little was known by the professor of the 
greatness of his discovery. Since he first 
succeeded in solidifying atmosphere, 
however, he has had many opportunities 
to made observations and further experi¬ 
ments, with a result that the importance 
of the discovery has largely been brought 
to light. 

Prof. Metz has tried to find out the 
temperature of solid air, but in this he 
has failed to date. It is much colder 
than liquid air and will remain longer 
in its created state. 

Prof. Metz estimates that solid air 
would register 820 degrees below zero 
if the mercury could be kept from freez¬ 
ing while the test was being made. But 
no thermometer has yet been made that 
will register the temperature of solid air. 

The substance is not curious to look 
upon. It appears very much like a block 
of ordinary ice. It is transparent and 
has veins running through it after the 
manner of ice that has been subjected to 
great pressure. It appears to be formed 
in strata, though its toughness argues 
silently against this belief. Prof. Metz 
tried with every means at his command 
to smash a piece of solid air, the chunk 
being not larger than a walnut. He used 
all his strength with a blacksmith’s 
sledge hammer, delivering a blow of 
great force, but the air remained intact 
and the heavy hammer rebounded as 
though it had struck a rubber cushion of 
tremendous force and elasticity. The 
average hammer will bound from solid 
air like a boy’s rubber ball rebounds from 

the ground. 

L. of G. 


ENORMOUS FREEZING POWER. 

Another peculiarity of the substance is 
its enormous attractive and freezing 
power. Anything that touches it sticks 
to it. A slowly delivered blow from a 
hammer will result in the hammer re¬ 
maining firmly attached to the air. It 
requires a sharply dealt blow of great 
force to counteract this attraction and 
secure the rebound. 

One looks at the substance in abso¬ 
lute wonderment. A few years ago we 
could conceive air only as a gas. Then 
came liquid air, and the world wondered. 
Had one suggested the possibility of 
solidifying air h$ would have been re¬ 
garded as a man destined by nature for 
the lunatic asylum. 

Prof. Metz’s tests show that solid air 
has a highly explosive quality, and there 
is no doubt that it will play a most im¬ 
portant part in warfare before many 
years have passed. Its penetrating force 
is almost indescribable, and its use will 
be far greater than that of liquid air, 
because it can be controlled so easily. 
Liquid air fizzles and boils away so 
quickly that it is almost impossible to 
do anything with it. Not so the solid 
substance. It practically paralyzes every¬ 
thing with which it comes in contact. 

Like all great discoveries, simplicity 
was the dominant note of Prof. Metz’s 
experiments. It is a well-known law that 
rapid evaporation causes a marked lower¬ 
ing in temperature. Prof. Metz, of 
course, was familiar with this law, and 
when it was announced to the world that 
liquid air had been discovered, and that 
it was so cold that it would boil by reflex- 
action on being brought into contact with 
ice, he saw at once, that being in liquid 





100 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


form, if it could be solidified, a still 
greater intensified coldness could be se- 
cured. And so he sat about to prepare 
an apparatus that would evaporate liquid 
air in the shortest possible time. The ap¬ 
paratus is simple, yet quite ingenious. It 
acts by creating a vacuum over the sur¬ 
face of the liquid to be evaporated. 

The apparatus consists simply of a test 
tube, and a bent glass tube connecting 
the test tube with the vacuum. Prof. 
Metz found this system of solidifying air 
perfect in attaining results. He first used 
the test tube—about eighteen inches long, 
little more than an inch in diameter—fill¬ 
ing it with liquid air to within about six 
inches of the top. Then he corked it, 
and later connected it with the vacuum 
apparatus by a glass tube, bent in shape, 
and forced through the cork. 

SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS. 

The liquid air stood at a temperature 
of 312 degrees below zero. Immediately 
the connection was made with the 
vacuum, a startling disturbance com¬ 
menced to manifest itself. The liquid air 
began to sizzle and bubble just after the 
manner of water exposed to great heat. 
In a short time the cold became so intense 
that the atmosphere air outside the tube 
began to condense and run down the 
tube, dropping to the experimenting 
table, just as drops will fall from the out¬ 
side of a glass of iced water in the sum¬ 
mer -time. In a few moments the liquid 
air had assumed a new character. It 
solidified and bore the appearance of a 
reasonably clear chunk of ice. 

Clearly the experiment was a success, 
but it remained to examine the substance 


created. The glass tube was broken. Im¬ 
mediately the temperature of the room 
fell to an alarming extent. Indeed, it 
became so cold that it was with difficulty 
that the professor continued his observa¬ 
tions. The block of air was less than an 
inch square. 

On a second experiment the drops of 
condensed atmosphere that ran down the 
sides of the testing tube were caught and 
found to be identical with the liquid air 
inside of the tube. 

In order to test the toughness and duc¬ 
tility of the solid air Prof. Metz placed 
a small chunk on an anvil and delivered 
a tremendous blow with a heavy ham¬ 
mer, and, as stated, the hammer re¬ 
bounded as if it had struck solid rubber 
of great resistance. All efforts to smash 
or to crack it failed. 

A special pair of pincers were prepared 
to handle the substance. As soon as they 
were within a sufficiently close range they 
were attracted to the air as a magnet at¬ 
tracts a needle. With a snap they at- 
attached themselves to the side of the sub¬ 
stance, and it required a great deal of 
strength and much manipulating to free 
them. 

The flesh touched with solid air is 
burned as if touched with redhot steel 
and a nasty wound is left. The faint¬ 
est touch is sufficient to produce this ef¬ 
fect. Indeed, only the faintest touch is 
possible with safety. Death would soon 
result from a continued application. 

A steel rod more than a foot long held 
in the hand and applied to the block of 
air conveys to the hand a sensation of 
tremendous heat—so great that one does 
not know whether it is heat or cold. It is 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


101 


impossible to hold the position more than 
a moment, a sense of paralysis coming 
over the entire body. 

THE USE OF SOLIDIFIED AIR. 

As a practically useful product, Prof. 
Metz expects solid air to find an import¬ 
ant place in the forces used by man. Its 
tremendous power has been proved. It 
is expected to be of untold benfit to coal 


as dynamite, and, at the same time, as 
it travels, solid air gives off almost pure 
oxygen. Thus the atmosphere will be 
cleared and allow of men working after 
the shattering process has been com¬ 
pleted. 

As an explosive the possibilities of 
solid air are amazing. Naturally the ex¬ 
periments have to be conducted with great 
care, but Prof. Metz is working along 



Roman wire cable dug up in Pompeii showing the metal-working knowledge of that time. 


miners. Frequently noxious gases pre¬ 
vent working a mine in sections, and 
enormous loss of material and time re¬ 
sults. It will be possible with solidified 
air to alter this condition. A cylinder 
charged with solid air will send its force 
outward, as from the mouth of a cannon 
and sideways, when released. This, 
driven through the strata of the coal, 
will accomplish silently the same results 


this line, and he promises to produce an 
explosive that will set the world to won¬ 
der. His theory is that if he can sud¬ 
denly turn the solid air into gaseous at¬ 
mosphere he will create an explosive to 
which dynamite is like a Chinese fire¬ 
cracker. It is quite possible to conceive 
of no substance put together by man be¬ 
ing proof against such an irresistible 
force. 










102 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FATHOMLESS WONDERS OF ELECTRICITY. 


LOW CURRENTS DEADLY, 
HIGHEST CURRENTS HARMLESS. 

To produce the full brilliancy of the 
carbon filament in an incandescent lamp 
bulb, a current of no to 120 volts is 
normally used. Imagine a current of suf¬ 
ficient voltage to light 9,000 such lights 
and an adequate idea of the meaning of 
a million volts may be secured. It is 
this current that will pass through the 
body of one so devoted to science that 
he will make the experiment to prove 
that what he has worked out in theory 
is possible in practice. 

The voltage of certain forms of the 
lightning flash have been estimated at 
from 100,000 to 5.000.000 volts and it 
is believed that flashes of the higher volt¬ 
age are those responsible for such curious 
phenomena as tearing off a man's cloth¬ 
ing and melting the coins in his pocket 
without injuring him beyond a shock to 
his nerves. On these and other similar 
observations Prof. Thomson bases his be¬ 
lief that a million-volt current is as harm¬ 
less to the human body as light or sound 
waves which pass around it without dam¬ 
age. Fatal accidents from live wires car¬ 
rying 6,600 volts are numerous enough 
to fill the average person with a whole¬ 
some fear of the effects of such a current. 
This is the common voltage at which the 
current for the electric light and power 
substations is generated, and to touch the 
hare wires carrying such a load of elec¬ 
tricity means instant death. 

CURRENTS DISORGANIZE 
NERVES. 

Electricians who work in the power 
houses and substations know this, and 


every year a number of the men resign 
lucrative positions because their nerves 
become undermined by the continual im¬ 
minence of death. 

In one of the large eastern stations, 
where the current is generated by water 
power at a tension of 10,000 volts, none 
of the original switchboard men of five 
years ago are now in the employ of the 
company. Each, on resigning, has de¬ 
clined an increase of pay with the words : 

“I can’t stay. I’ve lost my nerve.” 

The public mind is imbued with the 
idea that a current of high voltage is 
most dangerous. This has been borne in 
upon them by loose statements of popular 
writers who fail to distinguish between 
volts and amperes. 

Prof. Thomson’s experiment shows 
that a million volts can pass through the 
human body without effect other than a 
mild tingling sensation, yet the same cur¬ 
rent passing through the air will make 
a noise like the firing of a shotgun. In 
this current only enough amperes will 
be used to make it perceptible, and when 
the current passes through the arms of 
Prof. Thomson only a fraction of an 
ampere will be left after the raising of 
the volts to such a high figure. In the 
calculations of the electrician, one volt 
multiplied by one ampere produces one 
watt. If 200 watts are used at the start 
when the voltage is 100, two amperes 
would be available. Raise the voltage to 
a million or a billion—if the latter were 
possible—and the amperes become neg¬ 
ligible. No matter what the voltage, the 
product of volts and amperes must give 
the same number of watts as were pres- 




View of Brooklyn from tower of the unfinished new East River Bridge, 














































104 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ent at the start, for this machine does 
not create energy, nor does any other. 

By a simple calculation it will he found 
that the amperage of the current which 
Prof. Thomson lets pass through his body 
has only one five-thousandth of an ampere. 

It takes more than ordinary nerve to 


thrust one's own body in the gap across 
which will leap that terrifying spark. 
Those who know most about the cur¬ 
rent will he most chary of interposing 
their flesh and hones in the path of a 
flash of lightning where the jagged 
stream passes with noise of a thunderbolt. 


LATEST WONDERS OF WIRELESS ELECTRIC 

CURRENTS. 


Wireless telegraphy has passed beyond 
the experimental stage, and is now an 
established fact, a commercial success, 
recognized as an investment, and a com¬ 
modity that may he speculated in on the 
stock exchanges. The Russians got ail 
their news from Port Arthur in that way. 
The United States army has utilized it 
in its annual war maneuvers for at least 
two years; the German, French and 
Italian armies are using it at their mo¬ 
bilizations; there is an outfit for receiving 
and sending dispatches on every up-to- 
date man-of-war, and one of the trans¬ 
atlantic lines publishes a daily newspaper 
while at sea containing news received 
through the currents of the air. The 
United States weather bureau has 
adopted it. 

DESTROYING WIRELESS 
DISPATCHES. 

Colonel Corbin of Jamestown, N. Y., 
has an apparatus by which he claims that 
he can destroy wireless dispatches while 
they are passing through the air, and pre¬ 
vent their delivery. He has a method by 
which he catches them on the fly, so to 
speak. He breaks the electrical waves 
that carry them, and scatters the frag¬ 
ments in the atmosphere. He considers 
this quite as important as the act of send¬ 


ing, at least from a military point of 
view. Mr. DeForest, the inventor of the 
American system of wireless telegraphy, 
says that Corbin’s claim is possible, and 
that he can doubtless do what he proposes. 

The apparatus of the DeForest system 
is very simple. The Marconi method is 
more complicated, and its messages are 
received in a little cylinder of iron filings. 
The sending apparatus of the DeForest 
system is an ordinary Morse key, which 
produces a spark and starts it on a jour¬ 
ney over the hills and far away at the 
rate of 186.000 miles per second. But it 
does not travel in a straight line. The 
foot of the wave being grounded in the 
conducting surface, which may be either 
earth or water, it will follow that surface 
by the path of least resistance. Hence it 
usually passes over heavily wooded hills 
and mountains, following the contour of 
the earth, until it strikes an upright wire 
and agitates it with dots and dashes just 
like an ordinary message coming over an 
ordinary wire. Every time a spark is 
released at the sending station, a click is 
heard by the receiving operator’s ear, and, 
having interpreted it in his mind, he 
writes it down upon a piece of paper. 

An even more wonderful machine is 
the “radiophone”—-a wireless telephone 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


105 


by which Professor Alexander Graham 
Bell of Washington can send a song or a 
speech or any sound of the human voice 
across a country or an ocean astride one 
of those same electric waves. The ap¬ 
paratus is in operation in two forms. 
Spoken messages are transmitted over 
beams of light thrown from an electric 
searchlight upon a mirror at any distance 
you choose. The strength of the sound 
at the receiving end varies according to 
the strength of the light and the resist¬ 
ance. It is received through an ordi¬ 
nary telephone connected with a selenium 
cell concealed in the centre of the receiv¬ 
ing mirror. 

Another form method of sending oral 
messages through the air consists of two 
coils of wire, one of which is carried 
around with the operator and the other 
is buried somewhere in the earth. 

Mr. P. B. Delaney of South Orange, 
N. J.. has invented a machine by which 
any operator who understands the busi¬ 
ness can send a thousand words a thou¬ 
sand miles a minute, between Chicago and 
Philadelphia, for example, while over 
short distances, between Philadelphia and 
Washington, or Chicago and St. Louis, 
he says he can send 2,500 words a minute 
ever a single wire. 

The automatic telephone is one in which 
every subscriber has his line connected 
with the line of every other subscriber. 
Attached to his telephone box is a dial 
with little disks bearing numbers from 
one to cipher. Pfe takes up his telephone 
directory, finds the number of the man he 
wants to talk to, and punches the little 
disks in the dial that bear those figures. 
It’s a good deal like a combination on a 


safe. Then the bell on the telephone 
belonging to the man he wants to talk to 
rings and summons the latter to action. 
After the conversation is over both gen¬ 
tlemen hang up their receivers, the con¬ 
nection is broken, and somebody else can 
use the wire. 

Fhe telautograph of the late Professor 
Elisha Grey of Chicago has not yet be¬ 
come a commercial success. By this 
means autographs may be transmitted by 
wire—that is, if a gentleman sits down 
in his office with a stylus in his hand and 
writes a message upon an electric cylin¬ 
der at one end of a wire, a pen at the 
other end will record a facsimile of the 
message—every letter an autocratic du¬ 
plicate of the original. 

A similar machine called the Poulsen 
telegraphone will record automatically on 
a moving steel wire a message sent 
through a telephone, and at any time 
afterward that message can.be repeated 
in the voice of the sender if the wire is 
connected with a telephone. This inven¬ 
tion has not yet received commercial 
recognition, but its inventors are very 
sanguine that when it is better known it 
will be accepted as a public necessity and 
“fill a long-felt want.” Its chief merit 
is that it can record messages sent over 
a telephone during one's absence. The 
inventor, however, sees in it great utility 
for news service, because a single oper¬ 
ator. at a central point like Washington, 
may send the same message to a dozen 
or forty different editorial rooms, where 
it may be taken off the wire afterward 
and recorded at leisure. He thinks it 
will be cpiite as useful in that way as the 
phonograph in dictating letters. 




106 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THE AURORA. 


The aurora, as seen from compara¬ 
tively low latitudes—such as those of the 
southern parts of our continent—may 
be roughly described as resembling day¬ 
break in the wrong place, the southern 
sky being lighted up in a way which 


suggests the approach of sunrise; nearer 
to the zenith rose-colored beams are 
often seen, which appear to diverge from 
a common point in the south, but these 
are generally less conspicuous than the 
cloud-like masses nearer to the horizon. 
In higher latitudes the appearances are 
altogether different; one, two, or even 
more brilliant arches are seen in the sky, 
the space within them being very dark; 
outside the arches, and further from the 


horizon, the rose-colored beams are often 
present; at other times their place is taken 
by brilliant festoons and streamers, winch 
by their rapid and graceful movements, 
make up a picture of singular beauty. 

That there is a very close connection 


between the phenomenon of auroras and 
the earth’s magnetism is shown by sev¬ 
eral facts. In the first place the centre 
of the circles of which the auroral arches 
form portions lies very near to the mag¬ 
netic pole. Nordenskjold goes so far as 
to affirm that “our globe is adorned with 
an almost constant crown of light, nearly 
thirteen hundred miles in diameter, lying 
about one hundred and twenty miles 
above the ground, and having its centre 



Sun image found in deep excavations at Frundholm, Denmark, showing that the ancient 

Scandinavians were sun worshipers. 






REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


107 


a very little to the north of the mag¬ 
netic pole.” This statement, of course, 
is for the northern auroras, but prob¬ 
ably the same thing holds good for those 
of the Antarctic regions. In lower lati¬ 
tudes auroras are of comparatively rare 
occurrence, and when seen they are al¬ 
ways associated with large and irregular 
changes in the earth’s magnetism. These 
auroral displays, like the magnetic fluc¬ 
tuations, belong to the class of phe¬ 
nomena known as disturbances, as they 
mark an extension of auroral activity 
into regions of the atmosphere gener¬ 
ally free from it. 

CAUSE OF AURORA. 

The cause of the aurora is now gen¬ 
erally believed to be a series of electrical 
discharges taking place in the extremely 
rarefied upper regions of the atmosphere. 
Prismatic analysis shows its light to con¬ 
sist of a number of differently colored 
lines, many of which are identical with 
those given out by the rarefied air con¬ 


tained in so-called “vacuum tubes” when 
electric sparks are passed through it. The 
peculiar feature of the light is the very 
low temperature of the air which emits 
it. It has been proved that, if the air 
were seriously heated by the discharge 
the light would be incomparably brighter 
than anything yet observed even in the 
brightest displays. 

The extension of the aurora into low 
latitudes, and the accompanying magnetic 
disturbances, are known to be pretty 
definitely associated with changes in the 
sun, “solar storms,” as they may be 
termed; whether the solar storms are the 
cause of the other disturbances, or only 
another manifestation of the action of 
unknown forces which affect the entire 
solar system, is not yet known, though 
the latter alternative seems to be the 
more probable. It is worth noting that 
each of these phenomena sometimes oc¬ 
curs alone, but this isolation is a com¬ 
paratively rare event. 


NITROGEN. 


THE ELEMENT UPON WHICH THE 
SCHEME OF LIFE DEPENDS. 

WHAT NITROGEN IS. 

Among all the elements known to 
chemistry there is none which confers 
such contradictory characters on its com¬ 
pounds as nitrogen. None occurs in such 
enormous quantities in the free state, and 
few need so much persuasion to make 
them enter into combination with other 
elements 

About four-fifths of all our atmos¬ 
phere consists of nitrogen, and the total 
weight of all the nitrogen in the air is 


somewhere about 8,800,000,000,000,000 
tons. It is a colorless, tastless, odor¬ 
less gas—a quiet and inoffensive crea¬ 
ture, to all appearances. Though it can¬ 
not support life, it yet is not poisonous. 
Its function seems to be simply to dilute 
the invigorating oxygen which consti¬ 
tutes the other fifth of the atmosphere. 

When once it has combined with other 
elements all its apathy disappears, and it 
shows its presence in the various com¬ 
pounds by bestowing upon them a won¬ 
derful variety of properties, thus render¬ 
ing them capable of the most diverse uses. 










BOOK OF THE TIMES 


108 


Foods, poisons, drugs, dyes, and ex¬ 
plosives all bear eloquent testimony to 
the many-sided versatility of this strange 
element. 

USES OF THE ELEMENT. 

Every living thing in the whole range 
of Nature—both plant and animal— 
needs nitrogen for its life. Plants and 
animals alike consist of innumerable mul¬ 
titudes of cells, containing the mysterious 
life-jelly called protoplasm, and of this 
protoplasm nitrogen is an essential con¬ 
stituent. But, curious as it may seem, 
though bathed in nitrogen, neither plants 
nor animals can utilize it for building up 
their tissues. They can only use it when 
it has already combined with some other 
elements—which it is always most un¬ 
willing to do. Even the lightning's flash 
causes only a small quantity of nitrogen 
to combine with the oxygen of the air, 
when it is immediately dissolved by rain 
and absorbed by plants. 

But the supply from this source would 
not be nearly sufficient for the vegetation 
of the earth, so plants draw most of their 
nitrogen from the decayed remains of 
former generations of plants and animals. 
Since, however, the total animal and plant 
life on the earth is increasing at a great 
rate, there would most certainly come a 
time when these sources of nitrogen 
would prove utterly inadequate—with 
very serious consequences for the inhabit¬ 
ants of the earth who are unable to use 
the vast supply of free nitrogen in the 
atmosphere. 

There is, moreover, a most wonderful 
provision to meet this contingency. 
Everything seems to have been carefully 
arranged beforehand to secure the wel¬ 


fare of the living creatures of the earth. 
Certain plants belonging to the natural 
order leguminosae (including peas, beans, 
lentils, clover, vetches, etc.) are subject 
to attack from a peculiar microbe which 
takes up its abode in the roots, where it 
causes little nodular swellings. 

HOW IT CONVERTS OTHER 
ELEMENTS. 

The microbe really constitutes a para¬ 
sitic disease like tuberculosis in man, but 
with this difference—that, though the 
microbe feeds on the roots of the plant, 
it pays a fair price for its board and 
lodging. It actually sucks in free nitro¬ 
gen from the air, and transforms it into 
compounds which its host can use for 
food. By this means enormous quanti¬ 
ties of atmospheric nitrogen are con¬ 
verted into a form in which living things 
can utilize it. 

This is why farmers find it necessary 
to put in a crop of beans, vetches, or 
clover every few years; for, since these 
crops derive most of their food from the 
air, they actually add plant-food to the 
ground when they die down, so that the 
next crop finds a richer soil than before. 

It is somewhat curious that the very 
element which is such an absolute ne¬ 
cessity for all forms of life should also 
lie one of the most potent causes of death. 
Yet so it is. Almost all the most power¬ 
ful poisons are nitrogen compounds, and 
seem to owe their poisonous properties to 
the nitrogen they contain. Such sub¬ 
stances as prussic acid, strychnine and 
morphine are examples; also the deadly 
poisons known as ptomaines, which are 
substances produced by the decay of nit¬ 
rogenous foods like flesh and albumen. 



REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


100 


NITROGEN AS A COMPOUND. 

This strange inconsistency is typical 
of the behavior of nitrogen in almost all 
its combinations. Its compound with 
oxygen forms, with water, one of the 
most powerful acids—nitric acid, one 


hydrazine, is so powerfully corrosive that 
it rapidly destroys glass and almost every 
other kind of vessel in which it may be 
produced. It really seems as though nit¬ 
rogen does not know its own mind for 
many hours together. 



A Lama’s grave with its protecting wall of gleaming white. From a .photograph taken 

near Darjeeling (7,000 ft. above sea-level). 


drop of which will burn through any ani¬ 
mal or vegetable material; while its com¬ 
pound with hydrogen—ammonia—is a 
powerful alkali, and is capable of neu¬ 
tralizing any acid. Yet another com¬ 
pound of nitrogen and hydrogen, called 


But if nitrogen supplies powerful poi¬ 
sons, it also furnishes us with most potent 
medicines and drugs—such as quinine, 
cinchonine, and many similar substances. 
Indeed, chemists have worked incessantlv 
for many years to discover how to make 






















no 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


quinine artificially. So far their strenu¬ 
ous efforts have not been crowned witn 
success, but they are not discouraged; 
and there can be no doubt that a fortune 
awaits anyone who succeeds in solving 

9 

the problem, so great is the therapeutic 
value of this drug. 

Without nitrogen, too, coal-tar would 
be unable to supply us with its wonder¬ 
ful collection of brilliant dyes. It was 
only after chemists discovered how to 
introduce nitrogen into these compounds 
—by the help of sulphuric acid—that the 
immense advances in the great dyeing in¬ 
dustry have become possible. 

NITROGEN GROUPS. 

The basis of all those dyes is benzine, 
which, with many of its derivatives, oc¬ 
curs in coal-tar. The tar is very care¬ 
fully distilled, and the various constitu¬ 
ents separated as completely as possible. 
Benzine consists only of carbon and hy¬ 
drogen, but is capable of assimilating a 
vast variety of groups of elements into 
its structure with the production of very 
diverse substances—most of them, how¬ 
ever, being colorless, or nearly so. When 
nitrogen groups are introduced, very 
complex substances result, many of them 
being valuable dyes. Indeed, there are 
very few dyes at present in use that are 
not directly connected with coal-tar. 

But it is in the domain of high ex¬ 
plosives that nitrogen displays perhaps 
the most astonishing marks of its pres¬ 
ence. There are some combinations into 
which this element seems to have a very 
great objection to entering, and if it is 
made to do so by roundabout methods, it 
frequently shows its disapproval by 
breaking up the whole structure on the 


slightest provocation with explosive vio¬ 
lence. Thus nitrogen and chlorine will 
not combine together directly; but if so 
distasteful a union is forced upon them 
by indirect means, the result is a pale- 
yellow liquid—chloride of nitrogen— 
which is probably the most dangerous of 
all known explosives. One drop of this 
liquid explodes with fearful violence, 
often without any apparent cause. 

We have long been familiar with nitro¬ 
glycerine and gun-cotton. These high 
explosives are produced by inducing nit¬ 
rogen to enter into the structure of such 
harmless substances as glycerine and cot¬ 
ton. A mixture of nitric and sulphuric 
acids converts these substances in a few 
moments into these powerful agents of 
destruction. Dynamite is merely nitro¬ 
glycerine absorbed in a kind of fine 
sand called keiselguhr. This is much 
safer and more convenient to transport 
than the liquid nitro-glycerine. 

Cordite consists of gun-cotton, nitro¬ 
glycerine, and vaseline. It has a stringy 
appearance when finished, and hence its 
name. Blasting gelatine is a solution of 
gun-cotton in nitro-glycerine. Various 
forms of “smokeless powder” are prin¬ 
cipally composed of gun-cotton, which 
leaves no residue after explosion, and 
gives very little visible smoke. 

Even wood is now made into a high 
explosive resembling gun-cotton, by 
means of nitric and sulphuric acids, and 
is much used in ammunition for small 
arms. 

AS AN EXPLOSIVE. 

It is a strange incongruity that a pow¬ 
erful explosive should turn out to be a 
useful medicine. Yet such are the incon- 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


111 


sistencies for which nitrogen is respon¬ 
sible that it has been found that nitro¬ 
glycerine has a very marked influence on 
the heart, and is now a recognized medi¬ 
cine for internal administration in cases 
of heart disease. 

A very interesting case is that of picric 
acid. For many years this substance has 
been manufactured for use as a dye. It 
has a brilliant yellow color, and is quite 
permanent on silk or wool. It is the 
simplest and most easily prepared of all 
the coal-tar dyes. Some fifteen or twenty 
years ago, however, a quantity of it was 
drying in a shed at a dye-works when a 
terrific explosion was heard, and the shed 
and its surroundings were wrecked. 
What had been only known as a dye 
suddenly made itself known as a power¬ 
ful explosive. It is now in the front 
rank of modern explosives, and is the 
principal constituent of lyddite, melinite, 
etc. It is produced by treating carbolic 
acid with a mixture of nitric and sul¬ 
phuric acids. 

ITS EFFECTS ON PRECIOUS 
METALS. 

Even silver, gold and mercury, which 
in their ordinary condition are so familiar 
to all, can be made into most violent ex¬ 
plosives by associating them with nitro¬ 
gen, with, however, the addition of car¬ 
bon and oxygen. The substances thus 
produced are called fulminates. Mercury 
fulminate is a more dangerously violent 
explosive than nitro-glycerine, and can¬ 
not be used for the ordinary purposes to 
which high explosives are put, on ac¬ 
count of its extreme sensitiveness to the 
smallest shock. It is much used in small 
charge for detonators. 


That the violent nature of many of 
these substances is really due to the nit¬ 
rogen they contain would appear from 
the fact that there is a compound of sil¬ 
ver and nitrogen, which is highly ex¬ 
plosive, and has often caused accidents 
while under investigation. 

THE LATER ELEMENTS. 

The new elements argon, helium, neon, 
krypton, and xenon, all of which, except 
helium, have been found in the air, re¬ 
semble one another in that none of them 
has yet been persuaded to combine with 
any other element, and their general prop¬ 
erties are very similar to those of ni¬ 
trogen. These inert gases are just now 
attracting great interest in scientific cir^ 
cles, in view of the announcement made 
recently by Professor Ramsey and Mr. 
Soddy, of University College, London, 
that they have observed the emanation 
from radium to actually change into 
helium. 

If this observation proves to be cor¬ 
rect, the question at once arises—can the 
other inert gas, nitrogen included, be 
made from the other emanations of ele¬ 
ments like radium? Are there other ele¬ 
ments like radium yet undiscovered that 
may reveal even greater wonders to the 
patient 'student of nature? And are 
these inert gases merely the debris of 
radioactive elements, such as radium ? 

These speculations are intensely fas¬ 
cinating to the chemist, but their proof 
or disproof is in the future. Their time 
is not yet; but of one thing we may be 
sure. The wonders of nature are only 
just beginning to be unfolded by science. 






BOOK OF THE TIMES 


112 


FLYING BULLETS AND VISIBLE AIR-WAVES. 


Photography by the brief light of an 
electric spark has made it possible for 
the man of science to detect and analyze 
the stages of extraordinarily rapid move¬ 
ments. Professor C. V. Boys has thus 
been enabled to photograph at various 
periods of its flight a rifle-bullet travel¬ 
ing at 1,296 feet per second, and to ob¬ 
tain images of its gradual progression 
(the term is relative) though a sheet of 
plate glass. But the most wonderful 
thing of all is the visibility to the eye 
of the camera of waves caused by the 
compression of the air set up by the flight 
of the bullet. These air-waves show as 
dark lines streaming away in parabolic 
curves from the projectile as it travels. 
Why the waves should be visible to the 
sensitive plate requires diagrammatic 
explanation, and even that is rather hard 
for the mind untrained in natural 
philosophy to follow; but Professor Boys 
has simplified the question by asking us 
to suppose that the wave is a shell of 
compressed air, acting as a prism. Rays 

WHO WERE THE 

Persons who had their schooling fif¬ 
teen or more years ago were taught that 
before the advent of the Indians the con¬ 
tinent was the site of the empire of a 
highly civilized race quite different from 
the red men. The implements found in 
these heaps of earth, it was often said, in- 
dictated a civilization superior to that of. 
today and quantities of eloquence was 
spent on the mysterious nation that had 
been lost from the world’s history. Later 
investigation, however, has substituted 


striking this shell tangentially are de¬ 
flected, and leave an unilluminated point 
on the plate. At the same time the point 
struck by this deflected ray is receiving 
another ray, which the shell has not de¬ 
flected (owing to the angle of passage) ; 
consequently there is here a point of dou¬ 
ble illumination. Conceive this process 
multiplied for the whole extent of the 
imaginary shell and we get the 
complete dark line with a light line 
within it recorded on the photographic 
plate. Similarly, the rarefaction of 
the air caused by the compression sets 
up an image of a light line with a dark 
line within it. When the bullet pierces 
glass, each particle of shattered glass fol¬ 
lowing the projectile sets up its own air 
wave. Another curious point is that the 
head and tail waves caused by the bullet 
are not parallel. This is due to the fact 
that the tail of the bullet travels quicker 
than the head, or to a difference in the 
velocity of propagation. 


MOUND BUILDERS? 

for this romantic notion the common¬ 
place one that the mounds were the work 
of Indians. 

At various periods in their develop¬ 
ment certain Indian tribes seem to have 
been in the habit of protecting themselves 
by erecting extensive fortifications. Those 
at Fort Ancient on the Little Miami 
river and at Circleville, O., are especially 
well known. Other mounds were raised 
for burial places; for altars and for build¬ 
ing sites. Some were constructed by In- 




Fig. i. Bullet traveling 
1296 ft. per second. 
Fig. 2. Bullet traveling 
2000 ft. per second. 


Fig- 5 - Martini-Henry 
rifle bullet traveling 
1296 ft. per second. 



Fig. 3. Bullet passing 
through ether vapor 
and carbonic acid 
gas. _ 

Fig. 4. Reflection of air 
waves from passing 
bullet. 


Fig. 6. No. 8 shot 
showing air waves 
and wad. 



Fig. 7. Bullet striking plate glass showing back 
splash of glass dust. 

Fig. 8. Bullet as it passes through plate glass. 


Fig. 9. Bullet after passing through plate glass 
showing it covered with glass dust. 

Fig. 10. Bullet after passing beyond glass dust 
showing air waves of glass dust. 














































114 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


dians after the arrival of white men and 
contain knives and trinkets of European 
manufacture. Most of them, however, 
are more ancient, though it is generally 
believed now that they do not date back 
more than a few generations before the 
time of Columbus. 

The contents of the mounds, including 
cloth, water jugs, axes, kettles, tools for 
spinning and various weapons, are now 
known to be the product of no higher 
culture than that of many of the Indian 
tribes at the time of the discovery of 
America. The mound-builders were 
about on a level with the Shawnees, 
Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees and Semi- 


noles. Some of them, indeed, were mem¬ 
bers of these tribes and when the Span¬ 
iards arrived in Florida they were still 
erecting mounds in the Gulf states. 

Tke lack of records makes it difficult 
to follow the various Indian migrations, 
and ethnologists differ as to the prob¬ 
able location of certain tribes during the 
period of greatest activity in the construc¬ 
tion of mounds. As to the main facts 
of what the earth heaps indicate, they 
are in substantial agreement and there is 
no longer expectation of finding the re¬ 
mains of a splendid prehistoric empire 
in America. 


MYSTERY OF COMMON THINGS. 


WONDERS OF COMMON SALT. 

Ordinary table salt consists of two 
things. One is a metal called sodium. 
This metal is light in weight and silvery 
white in color. When thrown upon hot 
water it takes fire. 

The other is a gas called chlorine. This 
gas is heavy, greenish-yellow in color, 
and has a strong, suffocating odor. It 
is a deadly poison. 

Just think of it! When this metal and 
this gas are made to combine they form 
common salt—a necessary of life! 

That same gas chlorine unites with 
quicksilver. What do you suppose is 
formed? Calomel—calomel, which can 
be given to babies! 

These same substances, quicksilver and 
chlorine, if joined in another proportion, 


form corrosive sublimate—a deadly poi¬ 
son ! 

Can there be anything more astound¬ 
ing than the fact that calomel and cor¬ 
rosive sublimate consist of exactly the 
same things, only in different propor¬ 
tions ? 

There is a gas called hydrogen. It is 
the lightest substance known. It burns 
with a blue flame and a slightly ex¬ 
plosive effect. 

There is another gas called oxygen. 
It is sixteen times as heavy as hydrogen. 
It is the substance which makes every¬ 
thing burn. 

These united give—what do you sup¬ 
pose? Water! 

Think of that! Two gases, both of 
which burn, form a liquid which de¬ 
stroys all fire. 




REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


115 


WONDERS OF CARBON. 


Carbon is the industrial paradox. It 
is the hardest and one of the softest of 
the known substances. It burns and 
doesn’t burn. It is colorless and trans¬ 
parent and black and opaque. It scin¬ 
tillates and sparkles, and is dull and life¬ 
less. It is heavy as rock in one place and 
in another fifty pounds will fill a barrel to 
overflowing. It is so rare that it is called 
“precious" and so common that often 
it is a drug on the market. It is a poor 
conductor of electricity and one of the 
best. It is so expensive that a bit not 
much larger than a bean costs a small 
fortune and so cheap that the ordinary 
citizen buys it by the ton. It is a luxury 
and such a necessity that without it the 
industries of the country would be para¬ 
lyzed. 

Carbon is a paradox because as a dia¬ 
mond it is a precious stone, the hardest 
of known substances, colorless and trans¬ 
parent. As graphite it is black, soft, 
opaque and so refractory that it is made 
into crucibles for melting things almost 
heat proof. As coal it burns and is the 
chief source of industrial and domestic 
heat. As carbon black it is so “fluffy” 
that a boy can easily handle a barrel of 
it. The diamond, which is pure carbon, 
is a poor conductor of electricity, and 
graphite, which some times is 99 per cent 
pure carbon, and gas retort carbon— 
nearly pure—are such good conductors 
that large quantities are used in the elec¬ 
trical section of the industrial arts. 

A diamond—pure carton—can be 
placed on a block of graphite—practic¬ 
ally pure carbon—and in the presence of 
intense heat can be reduced to ashes, but 


the graphite will show no indication of 
having been heat affected. A diamond is 
so hard it will cut glass, but graphite is 
so oily soft that, mixed with pipe clay, 
it is used almost exclusively for lead 
pencils which will not scratch even tissue 
paper. 

HOW TO TEST A DIAMOND. 

To test a diamond rub vigorously with 
a bit of silk for a moment, and the stone, 
if a diamond, will attract bits of wool, 
cotton, or paper. Expose the stone to the 
direct rays of the sun for a few moments 
and remove to a darkened room. If it 
is a diamond it will glow. An imitation 
diamond shows a number of images when 
one looks through it. The diamond 
shows but one. 

METEORIC ORIGIN OF 
DIAMONDS. 

The reasons that they are not of ter¬ 
restrial origin and must have been 
formed under conditions never possible 
in the earth are these— 

1. Oxygen is everywhere present. 

2. Sudden cold never succeeded in¬ 
tense heat, as terrestrial temperature 
changes are slow in operation. 

3. They cannot possibly be reconciled 
with any of the eras of geology, and 
have been denied a place by all geologists. 

4. They are always isolated, and are 
never found in masses of carbon, so com¬ 
mon in all parts of the earth. 

5. They are consequently never found 
in a matrix when they could have been 
manufactured, as is the case with all 
other crystals. 





116 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


6. They have different refractive 
powers in their interior and exterior lay¬ 
ers, owing to tension during their forma¬ 
tion, according to Sir David Brewster, 
and others later. 

7. As conclusive, they have a differ¬ 
ent law of crystallization from carbon 
of known terrestrial character and forma¬ 
tion. This fact as certainly proves them 
of meteoric origin as the meteoric forms 
of iron and other minerals tell of their 
celestial birth. 

8. The diamonds of Kimberly are 
liable to crack or fly to pieces on coming ’ 


into the air, and the diamonds of the 
meteorite in Arizona have done the same. 
This establishes a most remarkable rela¬ 
tionship, and proves them all to have been 
subject to a pressure unknown to any 
terrestrial era which they have ex¬ 
perienced. 

9. A perfect diamond was never 
found except in a meteorite. They are 
all fragmentary, broken, fissured, cor¬ 
roded and coated with foreign material, 
differing in individual cases and locali¬ 
ties. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN VEGETABLES. 


PLANTS THINK. 

That plants have intelligence is main¬ 
tained in a thesis by Professor Shaler, 
of Harvard University. He says: “See¬ 
ing that there is reason to conclude that 
plant's are derived from the same primi¬ 
tive stock as animals, we are in no con¬ 
dition to say that intelligence can not 
exist among them. In fact, all that we 
can discern supports the view that 
throughout the organic realm the intelli¬ 
gence that finds its fullest expression in 
man is everywhere at work.” 

THE LIFE OF PLANTS. 

A Belgian scientist, Professor Guarini, 
says that electricity is the life of plants. 
This electricity is supplied in the atmos¬ 
phere, but sometimes the supply is not 
generous enough. It is a mistake to 


think, he says, that light alone will nour¬ 
ish plants. Scientists have shown these 
forty years that artificial light is a great 
stimulus to plant life, and that if electric 
light be applied at night in the right 
strength and for the right length of time 
the results in larger and more vigorous 
crops and plants will be very startling. 
Professor Guarini shows in a simple ex¬ 
periment that it is not the light alone 
which does the work; it is the electric 
radiation combined with the light, 
whether the electric radiation come from 
the sun and its rays or from the arc 
lamp. He surrounds a plant, for instance, 
with a metal cage through which the 
sunlight streams freely, but the cage acts 
as a conductor for the atmospheric elec¬ 
tricity, and hehold! the plant withers and 
becomes anaemic. 


THE CAUSE OF RAIN. 

SOURCE OF RAIN SUPPLY. the regions of varying rainfall for the 
A clue to the freaks of the weather is year. The striking feature of such a 
furnished by the map of the United map is the fairly regular arrangement of 
States showing, by differences in shading, the rain belts which radiate fan-like, from 







REVELATIONS OF SCIENCE 


117 


the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Their boundaries, however, are not 
straight lines, but curves, bending east¬ 
ward, as if the wedges had been blown 


mouth of the Mississippi and embraces 
the gulf states. From west of this region 
extends another belt of between forty 
and fifty inches of precipitation. This 



Largest meteor ever found. Brought to the United States by Lieutenant Peary from the 
Arctic zone. From time immemorial it had been the iron mine of the natives and 
its place was a secret known only to the Esquimo chiefs till Peary persuaded them to 
sell it to him. There is a meteoric stone in South America estimated to weigh 
30,000 pounds, one in Mexico even larger and Yale college has a mere fragment weigh¬ 
ing 1,740 pounds. A meteor estimated by astronomers to be a mile in diameter passed 
over Europe on the night of Aug. 18, 1783, and in 1803 one of these celestial tramps 
burst over Normandy and scattered more than 2,000 fragments over three square 
leagues of ground. 


over and out of shape by a hard west 
wind. * 

The first belt, where the normal aver¬ 
age precipitation is between fifty and 
sixty inches a year, begins west of the 


bends northeast in western Arkansas, 
crosses the Mississippi about St. Louis, 
and then broadens to embrace nearly the 
whole Atlantic coast as far south as Sa¬ 
vannah. Behind this lies the next belt, 


















118 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


which touches eastern Kansas and in¬ 
cludes the lake region. Another nar¬ 
rower strip lies to the west, and includes 
most of Kansas, while to the west of the 
iooth meridian lies the great semiarid 
region with an average annual rainfall 
of from ten to twenty inches. 

The inference from the map is that 
the gulf is the great source of the rain 
supply of the interior of the continent, 
and that the gulf and Atlantic ocean 
jointly furnish the precipitation for the 
eastern coast region. 

The great atmospheric whirls, from 
1,500 to 2,000 miles in diameter, which 
pass in procession over the continent 
from west to east, suck inland the vapor¬ 
laden air from the gulf and ocean. This 
vapor may be carried for hundreds of 
miles without being condensed into rain. 
In order that there shall be precipitation 
it is essential that the air containing the 
moisture be cooled below the dew point. 
Southwestern Arizona and southern Cali¬ 
fornia, for instance, received almost no 
rain, because through the season when 
the moist wind blows over them from the 
Pacific the land is warmer than the ocean 
and the vapor accordingly remains dis¬ 
solved in the air. But the west slope of 


the mountains in northern California and 
in Oregon and Washington is deluged, 
because the ocean breeze cools rapidly as 
it strikes the crest and the moisture is re¬ 
leased as rain. 

In the interior of the continent the 
cooling that produces rain is usually 
caused by a churning of the atmosphere. 
As the air rises and expands it cools until 
it can no longer hold its moisture as 
vapor—just as the chill of a summer 
night precipitates moisture as dew. In 
the spring and summer of 1901 the at¬ 
mosphere settled in stable equilibrium 
over the west. There was an almost total 
absence of the churning motion—the up 
and down drafts essential to the forma¬ 
tion of rain. They have been full of ed¬ 
dies, while at the same time they have been 
sucking water vapor from the gulf. This 
has been constantly cooling from the ex¬ 
pansion of the rising currents and so has 
fallen in frequent showers. 

Why the atmosphere is sometimes 
stable and sometimes in a state of flux, 
science has not yet discovered. It can 
explain the immediate causes of drafts 
and rainy seasons. The more remote rea¬ 
son^ are beyond it. 



BOOK II 


Triumph of 

Invention and Enterprise 

IN THE 

PROMOTION OF MAN’S DOMINION 
OVER LAND AND SEA 


ALL THE MOST REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENTS OF 
ENERGY AND GENIUS THROUGHOUT 

THE WORLD 






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Triumphs of Invention and Enterprise 


GREATNESS OF GREATER NEW YORK CITY. 



IFTY years ago a transporta¬ 
tion tunnel under New York's 
streets would have been con¬ 
sidered too great a task for hu¬ 


man achievement. A tunnel under the 
Hudson River would have been looked 
upon as impossible. Both have been ac¬ 
complished. With the completion of the 
rapid transit subway by far the greatest 
work of the kind in the history of the 
world was done. 

An underground- roadway twenty-five 
miles in length, the greatest undertaking 
of its character in the history of human 
achievement, has been constructed 
throughout the entire length of the island 
and reaching bevond it. A tunnel under 
the North River from Manhattan to 
New Jersey has been completed. Two 
others are being constructed to the Jer¬ 
sey side and three are being built under 
the East River, connecting Manhattan 
with Long Island. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel, 
now well under way, will open a through 
roadway under the rivers and the city 
from New Jersey to Long Island City, 
with the largest railroad station in the 
world in the centre of Manhattan. Three 
new bridges, all of which are to be larger 
than the old Brooklyn Bridge, are soon 
to span the East River, and all this is 
but the beginning in the gigantic scheme 
of rapid transit projected for New York. 


The sum of $320,000,000 is now invested 
in the construction of tunnels and bridges 
in and adjacent to Manhattan Island. In 
the history of civilization no half cen¬ 
tury has ever witnessed such a degree of 
material progress as has marked the up¬ 
building of New York City. 

Within the last decade building opera¬ 
tions in Manhattan have employed more 
than $100,000,000 annually, and with the 
prospect of improved transportation fa¬ 
cilities new business and residence centres 
have come into existence. 

CARRYING CAPACITY OF THE 
BRIDGES. 

On November 10, 1903, by actual 
count, 330,300 persons crossed the Brook¬ 
lyn Bridge. It is estimated that the in¬ 
crease in traffic since then has brought 
the daily average up to 350,000. Tak¬ 
ing these figures as a basis, those who 
are familiar with the capacity of the 
other East River bridges have prepared 


this table: 

Name of Bridge. Capacity. 

Brooklyn Bridge. 350,000 

Manhattan Bridge. 650,000 

Williamsburg Bridge . 500,000 

Blackwell’s Island Bridge.... 350,000 
Randall’s Island Bridge. 150,000 


Total .2,000,000 

All of the bridges to span the East 


River, with the exception of the pro- 


121 
































122 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


posed Randall’s Island Bridge, will be 
larger and have a greater carrying ca¬ 
pacity than the old Brooklyn Bridge. 
The old bridge has four car tracks, all 
told, two for trains and two for surface 
cars, with two roadways and one prom¬ 
enade. As compared with this, the Man¬ 
hattan Bridge, which is to run from 
Canal street and the Bowery to Nassau 
street in Brooklyn, will have four elevated 
or train tracks, four surface car tracks, 
one roadway and two broad sidewalks. 

THE GREAT SUBWAY TUNNEL 
UNDER NEW YORK CITY. 

The work covers a distance of twenty- 
four miles—thirteen and one-half miles 
of subway proper, five and one-half miles 
of elevated viaducts and five miles of deep 
tunnels. The main stretch of track from 
city hall to One Hundred and Fourth 
street is 6.7 miles long and four-track 
all the way. Following onto this are a. 
three-track system of 7.4 miles and a 
double track system of 9.6 miles, making 
a total length of twenty-four miles. The 
entire track length is seventy miles. The 
portion of the subway opened to the pub¬ 
lic for traffic consists of the four-track 
route as far north as West Ninety-sixth 
street. 

Unlike a number of other great works, 
called “subways,” the greater portion of 
this New York system is in reality a sub¬ 
way, having been built by the “cut-and- 
cover” method—the entire street being 
opened up and dug, and blasted down to 
the required depth, and afterwards cov¬ 
ered over with heavy steel floor, forming 
the bottom of the roadway above. 

The engineering problems overcome in 
the construction of this subway were stu¬ 


pendous. By far the greatest of them was 
the building of the tunnel under the Har¬ 
lem River, without resorting to com¬ 
pressed air, but by the entirely novel 
method of clamping tubes and sinking 
them to the required depth until they con¬ 
nected with the subway excavations, on 
dry land. Sections of the subway were 
built in the form of tubes, which were 
closed at each end with water-tight cov¬ 
ers. Thes£ were inclosed in a rectangu¬ 
lar structure of iron and concrete, sunk 
to the river bottom and bolted to the ad¬ 
vancing tunnel. 

In certain parts of the route actual min¬ 
ing operations had to be carried on. At 
the highest parts of the hill, uptown, 
which reaches from One Hundred and 
Fifty-seventh street to Fort George, the 
tunnel is 200 feet below the surface, and 
half a dozen shafts were sunk in different 
parts of the rocky mass in order to facili¬ 
tate the work below. A shaft was sunk 
at One Hundred and Sixty-seventh street 
and another at One Hundred and Eighty- 
first street, and from the bottom of each 
of them tunneling went on in both diree 
tions until the workmen joined one an¬ 
other by breaking through the rock be< 
tween. 

In many localities where it was found 
impossible, on account of the enormous 
amount of traffic—such as on lower 
Broadway—to use the cut and cover sys¬ 
tem in building the subway, the subcon¬ 
tractors were ordered to have their men 
dig in underneath, like moles, and this 
was done without a single accident. For 
seven months lower Broadway was 
walked over by millions of people, not 
one of whom ever bad an inkling that 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


123 


almost immediately beneath his feet 
stretched a great hole, thirty feet deep. 

The largest power-house in the world 
has been erected to supply the motive 
power for the new system. The building 
stands between Fifty-eighth and Fifty- 
ninth streets and Eleventh and Twelfth 
avenues, and is, in itself, a stupendous 
work not by any means overshadowed 
even by the subway. The machinery con¬ 
sists of eleven engines, each of 12,000 
horsepower, and seventy-two boilers of 
600 horsepower each. 

For the purpose of sustaining the 
weight of this great building and its 
enormous plant in safety, the foundation 
was carried down to bedrock. From this 
building thousands of wires and cables 
reach to the various distributing plants 
along the route of the underground road. 

“Having shoveled and blasted this 
four-track highway, fifty-four feet wide, 
under the most crowded parts of New 
York, with the foundations of tall build¬ 
ings on either side of us, and tangled 
miles of water mains, sewers, steam 
pipes, gas pipes, and all kinds of electric 
cables and conduits in our way—not to 
speak of the enormous traffic moving in 

THE PANA 


the streets above us—we have demon¬ 
strated that the rapid transit problem of 
any great city can be completely solved. 
It is now simply a question of more tun¬ 
nels. As far as New York is concerned, 
there is not a street in the city which can¬ 
not be safely tunneled. 

GREATEST TUNNELS IN THE 


WORLD. 

Miles. 

New York Rapid Transit. 

22 4-5 

Metropolitan Underground, Lon¬ 
don . 

13 

Simplon, Switzerland . . 

12 

St. Gothard, Switzerland. 

9 l A 

Paris Underground . 

8/2 

Mont Cenis, Switzerland. 

7^2 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. . . 

7 

Arlburg, Austria . 

6 

Tuppenny Tube, London. 

s 3 A 

Hoosac, Massachusetts . 

4 Va 

Berlin Underground . 

4 p 2 

Liverpool and Birkenhead. 


Boston Subway . 

2p2 

Cascade, Great Northern Rail¬ 
road . 

2^4 

Budapest, Austria. 

9 

Bowlder, Montana . 

2 

Ivanhoe, Colorado . 

2 

Sarnia, Canada . 

1 


CANAL. 


The isthmus connecting the two 
Americas, is to be cut through by a ship 
canal 49 miles long, hew enterprises 
in the world have been the result of more 
scandals, intrigues and financial loss. 
The idea of this canal began in the time 
of Spanish conquests, but only in re¬ 
cent years has it been the occasion of so 
much trouble. 

In 1875, a commission surveyed the 
route and recommended a canal at a 


cost of about $95,000,000. In 1879 an 
International Congress met in Paris 
and recommended a canal to be com¬ 
pleted in twelve years at an estimated 
cost of $240,000,000. De Lesseps, who 
had made the Suez Canal, was nomi¬ 
nally in charge, but he was old and 
the actual work devolved upon others. 
Enormous efforts appeared to be in 
operation for ten years when a re¬ 
ceiver was appointed. It was then 
found that $246,000,000 had been used 





















124 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


to no special progress in the great enter¬ 
prise. In 1894 a new company was 
formed and an International Technical 
Commission of Engineers examined the 
difficulties and reported that the canal 


Colombian government being about to 
expire, they sought to sell their interests 
to the United States. This was finally 
done for $40,000,000. The Commission 
appointed by the United States estimated 



The United States Treasurer signing the $40,000,000 Panama check. The $40,000,000 

warrant which' was signed by Mr. Shaw, secretary of the United States Treasury, 

on May 7, for delivery to the disbursement agents for the Panama Canal purchase, 

was the biggest warrant ever issued by the United States Government. On May 3 all 
the necessary documents were signed at Paris and at Washington and the Panama 
Canal Company delivered ail its documents to the United States. The treaty by which 
the whole arrangements were made was signed at Panama on December 2, and the 
signing of the warrant brought the most important negotiations undertaken by the 
Roosevelt administration to a most successful issue. The canal was originally begun 
by M. de Lesseps in 1881. In 1893 he and some of his family were prosecuted for 
bribery. In 1902 the Panama Canal Bill was signed by President Roosevelt, by which 
the property of the Panama Canal Company was to be purchased for $40,000,000. In 
November last year Panama was formally recognized as a republic by the United 
States. The purchase ends a long-disputed enterprise which may revolutionize com¬ 
merce. 


could be completed for an additional 
$102,400,000. This company did some 
work but was unable to obtain the neces¬ 
sary funds. Their franchise from the 

UNDER 

TERRORS OF WARFARE UNDER 
THE OCEAN. 

The great nations of the world who 
build big battle-ships and magnificent 
cruisers to fight each other will hence- 


that it would cost $144,233,358, including 
the necessary rebuilding of the Panama 
railroad for 15.5 miles, the railroad be¬ 
ing included in the canal purchase. 

THE SEA. 

forth have to calculate upon a compara¬ 
tively new and terrible weapon of war¬ 
fare—the submarine. 

Within range of this unseen monster, 
creeping along with only its cobra head 











TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


125 


above water, battle-ships will become as 
air bubbles and cruisers as brittle glass. 
Iron decks will become a terror and the 
glimmering sea a nightmare. The roll 
and tumble of every wave, the flash of 
swimming seabirds, to the distorted 
imagination of the sailor will take on 
the appearance of the dreaded periscope 
—the projecting eye of the deadly sub¬ 
marine. 

Never before in the annals of all the 
navies of the world have such wonderful 
things been performed. With these ves¬ 
sels, an utter mockery is made of the 
finest armor-clads afloat. By them it is 
demonstrated that the naval war of the 
future will be a thing almost too brutal 
and bloody for conception. Such a thing 
as army transport ships will become an 
impossibility, however closely the'- may 
be guarded. 

Yet, after all, through its mere ca¬ 
pacity for destruction the submarine may 
make for peace. With a hundred tor¬ 
pedo-boats such as of recent construc¬ 
tion included in the navies of the greater 
nations of the world, the international 
rules of warfare will have to be revamped 
to reconcile the strange extremes of civil¬ 
ization and brutality. 

THE BATTLE-SHIP OUT OF DATE. 

In the opinion of many able and ex¬ 
perienced officers the coming decade will 
see hundreds of mighty battle-ships rele¬ 
gated to the naval junk yards. Their 
belief in the submarine is positive and 
dogmatic. They believe it to be not 
merely a moral menace threatening to un¬ 
nerve the crews of big ships in war, but 
a material menace of grave import as 
well. 


“Will it pay us to build any more bat¬ 
tle-ships?” was asked of one of the gov¬ 
ernment naval experts. “Would not 
army transports be tetter guarded by a 
number of vessels carrying submarines 
on their decks, and having launching de¬ 
vices on board?” 

“Why, one of these boats could maxe 
a scrap-heap out of the biggest battle¬ 
ship afloat,” he replied. “Battle-ships 
cost millions. These liliputian things cost 
only thousands. The so-called supremacy 
of the sea is now a fiction. Every coun¬ 
try having a seacoast will in the future 



guard it by submarines, and no enemy 
will be safe from them fifty miles from 
shore.” 

At Newport one of the officers of the 
submarine boat Porpoise stated that one 
night he took his vessel out to the Bren- 
ton's Reef lightship, on the understand¬ 
ing that the forts Wetherell and Adams 
were to endeavor to pick him up as he 
passed into the harbor. 

As is well known, the harbor mouth 
is not over a furlong in breadth, and the 
big searchlights on the forts make it as 
light as day. 

The Porpoise, submerged, ran into the 






















126 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


harbor, past the forts, past the search¬ 
lights on the torpedo station, and an¬ 
chored at Rose Island, three miles up the 
bay, where she lay until morning with¬ 
out discovery. 

An additional improvement is being 
fitted to the government submarine boats 
which may prove extremely useful in 
case of sinking through shot or collision. 

It consists of a sort of trap-door under 
the torpedo tube in the bow. There is 
an airtight chamber connecting with the 
trap-door which when filled with com¬ 
pressed air permits the door to be opened. 
Divers in costume can then walk out on 
the ocean floor. In emergency the crew 
could come to the surface with rubber 
air floats. 

UNGROUNDED FEARS. 

The interior of a submarine under 
water is not at all an uncomfortable place. 
There is plenty of room. It is brilliantly 
lit up, and the ventilation is excellent. 

A popular mistake is that a submarine 
is always in great danger of hitting the 
bottom, especially if the water be shallow, 
and so knocking a hole in herself. But it 
does not hurt a submarine to strike the 
bottom at all. She differs totally from 
surface vessels in that she sinks upward, 
and not downward. The surface vessel 
strikes the bottom with all her weight, 
and, of course, if her buoyancy is de¬ 
stroyed, down she goes. The submarine, 
on the contrary, is wrong side up, as re¬ 
gards boats of the ordinary type. She 
always wants to go up in the water, just 
as balloons want to go up in the air, and 
she will go up automatically if her diving 
rudders or propelling gear get out of 
order. 


In fact, you have got to make her go 
down, and as her desire to go up and 
her desire to go down are almost equally 
balanced she touches bottom about as 
gently as a feather. Even if she scrapes 
along over sharp rocks and gets hurt 
underneath it does not do any harm. 
She is all steel tanks on the under side 
and they are filled with water when she 
is submerged. So that if her skin on the 
outer bottom be injured the tanks them¬ 
selves furnish another bottom which is 
perfectly tight. 

DIFFICULT RIDING. 

m a heavy sea a surface torpedo-boat 
is fairly safe, but being very light her 
motion is terrific and life in her is misery, 
and, besides, one of constant danger, for 
the violent jerks and leaps tend to throw 
people headlong from the deck into the 
water, and, indeed, often have done so. 

It takes skill very much like that of a 
circus rider to stand up on a torpedo- 
boat's deck in a moderate sea. The sub¬ 
merged boat, on the other hand, does not 
jump around. She acts like a great 
water-soaked log. She merely tobog¬ 
gans down the long waves with an easy 
swing which is not at all unpleasant. If 
the waves become combers, so that they 
break heavily on her, she dives, and at 20 
feet or so below the surface always finds 
calm water and stays there placidly until 
the storm raging overhead is over. 

As for effectiveness, a submarine boat 
can come to the surface, take aim, dive 
and fire her torpedo in from io to 15 
seconds, and with a well-drilled crew she 
ought to hit a battle-ship from four to 
five hundred yards distant eight times 
out of ten. 






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128 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


DANGERS TO CREW IN TORPEDO- 
BOATS. 

A\\ torpedo-boat work is dangerous; 
in action, desperately dangerous, and this 
whether the boat be run on the surface 
of the water or under it. This is because 
a torpedo-boat is not intended to act as a 
dispatch vessel, scout, blockader or the 
like, but solely to carry a self-propelling 
torpedo to a place sufficiently near to the 
vessel to be blown up so that when the 
torpedo is let go it will be exhausted. 

This distance is now a maximum of 
about one mile. But any run to the ves¬ 
sel before its propelling force is placed 
in the neighborhood of a war vessel from 
which such a torpedo can with certainty 
be projected is a very unsafe place. No 
surface torpedo-boat ever goes there in 
the daytime. 

She always picks out a moonless night, 
and especially when there is a low-lying 
mist on the water. Sometimes she man¬ 
ages to get there without being seen. 
Sometimes she does not, and has to make 
a rush for it. But no matter how she 
arrives, or how dark the night, that place 
is very apt to be brilliantly lit up by 
searchlights, and also subject to sudden 
and violent hails of steel shells. 

Now, a surface boat cannot make her¬ 
self invisible, and a chance glint of a 
searchlight on the foam in front of her 
bow will reveal her to her ever-watchful 
antagonist long before she has got within 
a mile distance of her target. Then the 
steel hail goes out to meet her. 

When the Terror tried to sink the St. 
Paul during the Spanish war she was dis¬ 
covered when only a speck in the distance, 
and the guns tore her to pieces when she 
was more than three miles off. 


FRAILTY OF THE VESSEL. 

A surface boat is nothing but a thin 
shell of steel packed full of the compli¬ 
cated machinery necessary to drive her 
at express-train speed, and, therefore, is 
perfectly defenseless even against one- 
pounder or three-pounder shells. A sin¬ 
gle hit in her boiler or engines may con¬ 
vert her into a helpless wreck which her 
antagonist can shatter at his leisure. 

The submarine torpedo-boat has ex¬ 
actly the same function as the surface 
boat, but, as she goes under water, she is 
not limited to work at night for her own 
safety. On the contrary, she can make 
her attack in the brightest daylight, and 
she relies upon the water above her not 
merely for purposes of concealment, but 
as the most effective of all shields against 
gunfire. The searchlight has no terror 
for her. There is no steel hail in the 
place from which she sends her torpedo. 

There is a prevailing idea that the sub¬ 
marine boat stays under water all the 
time. Ordinarily, she runs about on the 
surface like any other boat, and is pro¬ 
pelled by a gasoline engine, like an auto¬ 
mobile. It is only when she wants to 
hide herself, or when she desires to at¬ 
tack, that she goes down. 

Even when she is approaching her 
prey she runs on the surface, with her 
conning-tower a few inches above the 
water and looking very much like an 
ordinary floating barrel. Just as soon as 
she gets within dangerous distance of 
the attacked vessel down she goes, and, 
having already noted the direction of her 
target, she steers toward it by compass, 
just the same as any vessel steers in the 
dark or fog. As soon as she has s:ot near 
enough she slips her torpedo and runs 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


1*>9 


away. If she happens to Ije very near to 
the surface, and the sea is smooth, an ob¬ 
server high up on the deck of the at¬ 
tacked vessel might possibly see some in¬ 
dications of her, very much as one can 
occasionally get a glimpse of a porpoise 
from the deck of an ocean steamer. But 
the discovery is of no good. 

Even if there were time to fire many 
projectiles at her, they would simply 
bound from the water like skipping- 
stones. 

In brief, there is no possible defense 
except flight, and that means constant 
motion of the vessel endangered at a 
speed much faster than the submarine can 
go; and even then the submarine may 
lay her course to intercept that of her 
enemy, and so send a torpedo straight to 
its mark. 

PERILS OF THE SUBMARINE. 

There is a general notion that service 
on a submarine boat is much more peril¬ 
ous to the crew than on a surface boat, 
and this idea has lately been strengthened 
by the recent destruction of an English 
submarine, with all on board, by being 
run down by an ocean steamer. Of 
course, it is true that a submerged sub¬ 
marine is helpless against collisions of any 
kind. She cannot see other submarines 
in her vicinity, nor vessels on the surface, 
nor can they see her; but that is a chance 
which must be taken, and which, as a 
matter of fact, is really remote. In water¬ 
ways where vessels are known to be con¬ 
stantly plying a submarine, except just 
when diving or ascending, has no busi¬ 
ness to be moving about at depths where 
she can be struck. She ought either to 
be on the surface, where she can see about 


her, or else so far down that ships will 
certainly pass over her. 

She can navigate at depths of from 30 
to 40 feet just as well as in shallower 
water. Then she is perfectly safe from 
collision even with the largest steamers. 
In fact, that is quite a good position for 
her, because she can get some knowledge 
of the proximity of other vessels through 
their cutting off her light as they pass 
over her, and also by hearing their en- 
g’nes. But people will always associate 
going under water with the notion of 
drowning. 

A FEARFUL PRISON. 

Of course, the idea of being locked up 
in a tank 40 feet under water for long 
periods of time, in company with 600 or 
700 pounds of explosive gun-cotton, does 
not seem to be the safest situation in 
the world. But there is no more neces¬ 
sary connection between drowning in a 
submerged submarine than drowning in 
the submerged portion of a hull of a great 
steamer. 

One is just as much under water as 
the other. If the submerged boat is 
tightly shut up so that air and light must 
be artificially supplied to her crew, the 
same is exactly true of the fire-room of a 
steamer when forced draught is used and 
electric lights installed. In the closed 
fire-room or closed boat the, ventilation 
and lighting are as artificial in the one 
case as in the other. 

The air in the fire-room is forced in 
from the atmosphere, while the air in the 
boat comes from her reservoirs of com¬ 
pressed air; and of the latter she carries 
a supply abundant to last her crew for 
several days. 

When the interior of a submarine under 






130 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


water is full of water the boat still has 
plenty of buoyancy to bring her to the 
surface. 

A hole punched in her top or side is 
bad, but that can hardly happen except 
through collision, and it is her business 
to keep out of the way of collisions in the 
manner already pointed out, and, besides, 
a hole below the water line in any vessel 
is a troublesome matter. 



"Terrors of the Submarine. This shows how the 
English submarine “Ai” was run down and 
destroyed by an ocean liner. The captain re¬ 
ported that his ship had struck some un¬ 
known object during a fog, but it was sev¬ 
eral days before it was known that the ob¬ 
ject struck was one of the principal sub¬ 
marine vessels in the English navy. 

When submarines were first proposed 
it was quite confidently predicted that, 
being cigar-shaped, they would have no 
hold on the water and so in a heavy sea 
be rolled over and over like a barrel. 
Some of the earlier French submarines 
built on a bad system of balancing did 
occasionally stand on their ends and so 
drop their crews into their machinery. 
But modern boats have no such defect as 
this, for their balance is accurately pro- 
\ided to cover every emergency. 


The men in our navy* have fully got 
over any apprehension of being drowned 
in submarine torpedo-boats. In fact, one 
of these boats is now kept at the Naval 
Academy and the’ young midshipmen are 
constantly sent out in her to Chesapeake 
bay and have become quite skillful in her 
management. 

EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT SUB¬ 
MARINE VESSELS. 

It seems rather an absurd thing, said 
a naval captain, that, although a sub¬ 
marine boat was tried on the Thames 
nearly three centuries ago, we still have 
not evolved anything like a perfect under¬ 
water vessel. Of course, this submarine 
of the time of the Stuarts was a very 
primitive kind of craft. It was propelled 
by oars and, I believe, was much more 
adept at sinking than at coming to the 
surface again. 

Forty years ago the Confederates of 
Charleston used a submarine boat to some 
purpose against a Federal ship. She was 
a clumsy, cigar-shaped boat, roughly con¬ 
structed from boiler-plates, and was pro¬ 
pelled by hand at a maximum speed of 
five miles an hour. On her first three 
trial trips she sank beautifully enough 
each time, but she wasn’t equal to the 
task of rising again unaided, and every 
man on board of her lost his life. The 
fourth time she was sent out she did 
better, for she managed to blow up the 
Housatonic. She was too slow, how¬ 
ever, in getting away after delivering her 
blow, and she was carried to the bottom 
of the sea for the last time in her victim’s 
company. 

So, you see, the submarine of 1863 
was no great advance on that of the Stu- 
















TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


131 


art clays, and it was not until Nordenfelt 
set to work about twenty years ago that 
any real progress was made. 

HOW IT FEELS TO GO DOWN IN A 
SUBMARINE BOAT. 

An engineer has described his experi¬ 
ence in submarine crafts as follows : 

“One’s first sensations when going 
down in a submarine are almost inde¬ 
scribable. There is a feeling of suffoca¬ 
tion that almost overcomes one. The 
gasoline fumes have to be fought against, 
and until they are overcome one is dazed 
and only half conscious of what is 
going on. 

“Perhaps I cannot describe the feeling 
better than by saying that it gives you 
the impression that you are sinking into 
your grave. You get impressed with the 
maddening idea that the boat will not 
rise again, and it needs a strong man to 
combat such a sensation as this and over¬ 
come it. It is not until you have made 
many descents that you are able to go 
down without experiencing these qualms. 

“As soon as the boat begins to dive, 
imagine being inclosed in a big steel 
shell so tightly battened down that escape 
is impossible no matter what goes wrong, 
half smothered by the oppressive, fume¬ 
laden atmosphere, yet thoroughly con¬ 
scious that the slightest mishap will be 
fatal to the fragile craft you are helping 
to navigate, and you will have some sort 
of idea what going down in a submarine 
is like. No one who has not actually 
experienced it can fully realize the sensa¬ 
tion. 

“Those who would not feel the slight¬ 
est fear of being battened down in a sub¬ 
merged torpedo flat or an engine-room, 


or of l^eing locked up in a casemate in 
the hottest action imaginable, will yet 
funk the nerve-trying experience of div¬ 
ing in a submarine. 

“In a big ship, no matter whether you 
are above the armored deck or below it, 
you feel vou have some sort of a chance. 
But in a submarine you know you have 
none, and no matter how stout-hearted 
you may be this knowledge must have its 
effect, so that few are willing to continue 
the experience.” 

THE PERISCOPE FOR SUB¬ 
MARINES. 

The periscope is one of the most inter¬ 
esting and most remarkable inventions of 
the age. It is a glass tube about three 
inches in diameter and when those under 
water wish to know where they are they 
poke it up through a circular opening in 
the roof of the boat. There is formed 
for those below a perfect picture of the 
condition of the surface of the water 
with every object upon it in just as fine 
detail as the naked eye could observe it. 

The periscope, which is a series of 
lenses and prisms, is so long that even 
though it is projecting above the surface 
of the water sufficient to take in the sur¬ 
roundings the deck of the submarine is 
still twelve feet beneath the water. 

As the periscope is of glass it is not 
easily seen so near is it to the natural 
color of the water, but sometimes the 
practiced eye may detect it and so it is 
liable to be destroyed by a well-placed 
shot. Then those on the submarine would 
have to observe by coming up till their 
conning tower was out of water and they 
could note the surroundings through the 
small port holes. 



122 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SUBMARINE TORPEDOES IN WAR. 


The Whitehead torpedo employed in 
our service, except on board the Iowa, 
where the Howell is installed, is techni¬ 
cally known as an “automobile” weapon, 
in contradistinction to the “dirigible” 
type, which is electrically directed by 
means of wires from an operating base. 
The form of this complex instrument 
varies, but popularly speaking it is a 
cigar-shaped vessel separated into vari¬ 
ous compartments. Counting from the 
bow these isolated spaces are assigned 
(i) to the war head, (2) to the air flask, 

(3) to the immersion or diving chamber, 

(4) to the engine room, (5) to the after 
body, and (6) to the tail. 

Extending beyond the war head, which 
contains the gun-cotton charge and the 
percussion igniter and its charge, is a 
screw fan free to revolve. After the tor¬ 
pedo has run a distance of about eighty 
yards this fan unscrews sufficiently to 
put in operation a percussion firing appa¬ 
ratus. Should the fan strike an unyield¬ 
ing substance it and the spindle on which 
it revolves and the firing pin are driven 
against a fulminate of mercury percus¬ 
sion cap. This impact detonates the dry 
gun-cotton firing charge, and the latter 
ignites the wet gun-cotton contained in 
the war head. The air flask, occupying 
nearly two-thirds the entire length of the 
weapon, holds the compressed air used 
for driving the machinery. This air 
flask, it may be said in passing, can be 
recharged whenever the occasion de¬ 
mands by pumps that produce an exceed¬ 
ingly high pressure. Located in the im¬ 
mersion chamber is the delicate apparatus 
that carries and keeps the torpedo at the 


depth of water predetermined for its im¬ 
mersed travel. The flight of the weapon 
is directed by two rudders—one a com¬ 
pound horizontal which controls the 
depth of immersion, and the other a com¬ 
pound vertical, which shapes the course. 
The former, located in the immersion 
chamber, maintains the prescribed depth 
through the action of a hydrostatic pis¬ 
ton. The face of the piston is exposed 
to the water, and when the torpedo goes 
below the fixed depth this piston is pushed 
in by the increased water pressure. The 
rudders are turned at a lifting angle and 
the torpedo rises until the desired level is 
reached. Should the torpedo be above 
the depth set a reversed action takes 
place. In addition to this gear a pendu¬ 
lum, also connected with the horizontal 
rudder, is employed to prevent it giving 
too rank a sheer to the weapon. 

THE CONTROLLING MACHINERY. 

The compressed air passes from the 
flask into the engine room through a pipe 
governed by several valves and works 
under normal conditions an engine that 
is exceedingly light in construction and 
very accurate in adjustment and opera¬ 
tion. The after body, shut off from the 
engine room by a steel bulkhead, provides 
the necessary flotation for the weapon, 
and in the torpedo tail are carried the 
rods that control the rudders and the 
shafts that drive the screws. Other de¬ 
vices' are employed, most notable among 
them being the Obrv gear, or gyroscope, 
which automatically controls the vertical 
rudder. This compels the torpedo, no 
matter what deflection is encountered 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


133 


when it enters the water, to return to the 
original line on which the destroyer’s 
tube was pointed when the firing key was 
first pressed. “The immense simplifica- 


pedo a weapon that within its range is 
far more accurate than the gun.” “There 
is do doubt in the minds of officers,” de¬ 
clares Commander Murdock, “that a tor- 





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Mechanism of the deadly submarine mine. The largest warship is at once sunk hy contact 

with this powerful explosive. 


tion of aiming that has resulted from the 
adoption of this device,” writes Lieuten¬ 
ant Chandler, “must be apparent, and 
the gyroscope has made out of the tor¬ 


pedo exploded alongside or under a ves¬ 
sel will cripple if it does not destroy her. 
Argument must therefore focus on the 
single question, Can a torpedo be made 

















BOOK OF THE TIMES 


1 34 


to hit? Or, in one word, on its reliabil¬ 
ity. Nothing in the world can determine 
this but actual trial. And it is noticeable 
that all officers who have had extended 
torpedo boat service agree with Lieuten¬ 
ant Chandler that the torpedo ranks with 
the gun in reliability. One expert puts 
it that the torpedo excels the gun in ac¬ 
curacy, from the fact that its errors are 
all in training, the serious question of 

elevation being eliminated.” 

0 / 

INGENIOUS DEVICES. 

Many improvements have been made 
in the torpedo and in its launching ap¬ 
paratus within the last few years, though 
the secret of these is jealously guarded. 
Among the most ingenious is one that 
enables the commanding officer of a ves¬ 
sel carrying torpedoes to point his ship 
at the spot he desires to hit and then by 
an electric firing gear to discharge the 
torpedoes from all the tubes simultane¬ 
ously and in such a way that they will, 
after striking the water, turn and run 
parallel to the course of the ship. With 


a three-tube boat, like the Morris, for ex¬ 
ample, he could thus discharge three tor¬ 
pedoes, running into a danger zone about 
one hundred yards wide, one on each side 
of the zone and the third down the 
middle of it. The possibilities of a hit 
under such circumstances are enormous. 
Among other devices undergoing trial is 
one that superheats the compressed air 
before it enters the engine. This raising 
of temperature is most necessary, because 
when the compressed air is free it ex¬ 
pands, producing a low temperature that 
reduces its energy. An illustration of 
this is found in ice machines and in the 
apparatus used for producing liquid air. 
Another device simplifies and renders 
more certain the operation of the Obry 
gear by means of electrical connections, 
and a third substitutes turbine machinery 
for the present reciprocating engines. A 
well-known expert sees in this substitu¬ 
tion a jump in speed to at least forty 
knots for the eight-hundred-yard run and 
a correspondingly great increase of range 
at slower speed. 


WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. 


ITS UTILITY DEMONSTRATED IN 
MANY FIELDS. 

The Oriental war has established the 
utility of wireless telegraphy as a valu¬ 
able means of maintaining communica¬ 
tion during times when other methods of 
conveying intelligence between a bellig¬ 
erent and its base may be severed. The 
naval squadrons of both nations have 
found it invaluable in their operations. 
The scouts of the Japanese fleets have 
been able to inform their flagships of the 
movements and position of the Russian 


ships which they were detailed to locate, 
at distances far too remote for the em¬ 
ployment of ordinary signals used at sea. 
The fleets of both belligerents have also 
used it in action to direct the maneuver¬ 
ing of the various vessels engaged. Port 
Arthur was also able to keep in touch 
with Chefoo after the telegraph land 
lines and the cable were cut by the Japa¬ 
nese, until the equipment at the Chinese 
port was recently dismantled by the 
authorities on the Japanese representa¬ 
tions that it was being used by the Rus- 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


135 


sians as a military base in violation of 
the laws of neutrality. 

The Russians demonstrated, however, 
in their sorties made by the Port Ar¬ 
thur squadron, that it was possible to 
confuse the Japanese messages and thus 
hamper the movements of their ships by 
the simple expedient of continuously re¬ 
peating the Russian alphabet on their 
own instruments. The United States 
Navy has forestalled such a possibility 
by adopting a system which can be vari¬ 


ously attuned at pleasure and thus pre¬ 
vent interference by the enemy. 

Wireless telegraphy has been found ex¬ 
ceedingly useful also in the navigation of 
the oceans by the big liners. The monot¬ 
ony of the passage across the Atlantic 
has been largely destroyed by its employ¬ 
ment. Passenger steamships are in al¬ 
most constant communication with one 
another, although not within sighting dis¬ 
tance, and their approach to port is report¬ 
ed long before the loom of land is visible. 


OVER EARTH AND SEA. 


THE PROBLEM OF AERIAL 
NAVIGATION. 

Human genius has surmounted one 
difficulty after another, but the secret so 
easy with birds, of flight through the air, 
still baffles man's discovery and inven¬ 
tion. Balloons and kites have been 
brought to a high state of perfection, but 
all the countless efforts to fly have ended 
in failure. 

Many of the larger flying birds can 
soar and sail for indefinite periods with¬ 
out the perceptible flutter of a pinion and 
no one has been able to show how it is 
done. 

The frigate bird sometimes flies for a 
month at a time without resting for a 
moment. The condor will eat ten pounds 
of flesh and then soar to an altitude of 
three miles where he will sail without the 
movement of a wing till his food is di¬ 
gested. The frigate bird can go straight 
upward with a velocity of ioo feet a sec¬ 
ond to the distance of a mile without any 
visible wing motion and in fights between 
eagles or hawks they sustain themselves 
in the midst of their battle by some means 


that is yet unexplained upon any reason¬ 
able theory. 

FLYING MACHINES. 

Thus far the dirigible balloon of M. 
Santos-Dumont and the aerodrome of 
Prof. S. P. Langley remain the types of 
the most nearly successful experiments in 
this direction. Santos-Dumont’s achieve¬ 
ments, culminating in 1902, were not 
eclipsed by anything which he was able 
to accomplish during 1903, although the 
fact that in the absence of any strenuous 
wind pressure he was able to alight at his 
own domicile in Paris and resume his 
flight at his leisure was duly chronicled. 
That, however, added nothing to the 
value of what he had accomplished in 
preceding years by constructing a balloon 
susceptible to guidance in any direction, 
with or against the wind. No improve¬ 
ment worthy of note has been made, in 
his airship, which remains subject to the 
criticism that stands against all such 
aerostats, namely, that the great surface 
the balloon part presents to the action of 
the wind, considered in relation with the 



136 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


weight which the machine' will carry, 
renders it of practically small value. For 
commercial purposes it possesses no value 
whatever, nor any distinct promise of 
value. For war purposes it is certainly 
a vast improvement over the ordinary 
balloon in that its dirigibility would make 
it much more effective either for recon- 
naisance or as a means of dropping ex¬ 
plosives upon the decks of hostile war¬ 
ships. 

Professor Langley’s experiments with 


Langley’s experiments, which have been 
very costly and which have been pro¬ 
moted by the United States government, 
do not contemplate the development of 
an aerostat for commercial purposes, but 
of a machine which can be utilized to 
large advantage in warfare. 

MANY VARIED ATTEMPTS. 

Captain Romeo Frassinetti, of the Ital¬ 
ian army, has succeeded so far that his 
newly devised machine is regarded with 



Submarine boat Gymnote. Type of French construction. 


his aerodrome have differed from those 
of the preceding year mainly in applying 
the principles of his successful machine 
of 1902 to a machine sufficiently large 
and powerful to sustain an operator in 
its flight. Mr. C. M. Manly, who in¬ 
vented the motor engine for the Langley 
fie vice, proposed to make the first ven¬ 
ture in the air with the new aerodrome, 
and elaborate preparations were made for 
the flight, but various accidents to the 
machine prevented the attempt going so 
far as to launch it into space. Professor 


favor by the Italian minister of war. 
Frassinetti’s airship is a spindle-shaped 
balloon to which is attached a series of 
aeroplanes, some horizontal and the 
others vertical, the manipulation of which 
causes the machine to ascend obliquelv 
as well as vertically. Frassinetti claims 
that his balloon can travel at the rate of 
thirty miles an hour for forty consecu¬ 
tive hours. 

Experiments on similar lines to those 
of Frassinetti have been made by C. M. 
Mallory, of Chattanooga, Tenn., who has 



















TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


137 


constructed several machines combining 
the balloon and aeroplane elements; but 
thus far his machines have suffered when¬ 
ever subjected to the influence of strong 
winds. Mr. Mallory is confident that his 
“gliding machine,” as he calls it, can be 
successfully guided through the air, but 
he has not yet demonstrated that his con¬ 
fidence is well founded. 

What is perhaps the most interesting 
of the new devices is a flying machine 

J O 

constructed on the principle of the aero¬ 
plane which has been devised by Emil 
Berliner, of Washington, D. C., the in¬ 
ventor of the telephone transmitter and 
the gramophone. He has repeatedly 
tested the invention to his own satisfac¬ 
tion. Mr. Berliner began experimenting 
in this direction many years ago. Nearly 
thirty years ago, in a communication to 
a well-known scientific journal, he pro¬ 
posed as the principle of propulsion for 
flying machines a stream of compressed 
air, or gas, and he is using this principle 
in his present experiments. 

PECULIAR THEORIES. 

The theory upon which Mr. Berlinei 
is working is that practical flying ma¬ 
chines should be in the form of a struc¬ 
ture which, when moved forward hori¬ 
zontally, would produce a current of com¬ 
pressed air, with a tail surface for lifting 
the structure, and, combined with these, a 
sufficiently light motor, moving the 
whole rapidly forward. On these lines 
he designed a small model of a flying ma¬ 
chine which, in experiment, has shown 
its ability to lift, in flying, a weight of 
more than one pound for every foot of 
horizontal area at a speed estimated at 
something less than twenty miles an 


hour. The model is of aluminum and tin 
plate, with rods of oak and metal tubing 
for support, and weighs about thirty-four 
pounds, including ballast. It resembles 
three half cylinders, parallel with each 
other, open at the bottom, and each ter¬ 
minating in a tail similar to the scales 
in the tail of a lobster. The motive 
power for horizontal propulsion is sup¬ 
plied by two skyrockets attached hori¬ 
zontally to the rear of the machine, which 
measures from three and a half to five 
feet in width by about seven feet in 
length. 

On August 19, 1903, and on several 
subsequent dates this machine lifted itself 
from the ground, and in perfectly steady 
flight reached a height of eight feet from 
the ground. It also maintained itself for 
fifty feet at an almost even height of 
between three and four feet from the 
ground. No catapult or throwing device 
was employed, a mere push by hand being 
given at starting. The main body of the 
machine consists of arches, open below, 
as already stated, and sloping toward the 
rear, where the wide tail ends are at¬ 
tached. The arches, as the machine 
moves forward, produce a current of 
compressed air, and at the same time 
exert upon the under surfaces a power 
similar to that which explains the action 
of the parachute. This, of course, helps 
support the machine, but the main lifting 
is done by the inclined and outspreading 
tail pieces catching the air current. 
Wheels are attached to the machine to 
facilitate the obtaining of an initial speed 
on any fairly smooth surface. Experi¬ 
ments are in progress to develop a pro¬ 
peller which will replace the skyrockets, 





138 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


which, of course, are used only as an ex¬ 
pedient. 

EFFORTS OF NOTED INVENTORS. 

Of the many other experimenters none 
as yet has produced anything which 
threatens to rob Santos-Dumont or Pro¬ 
fessor Langley of the preeminence which 
they have attained in this field. Sir 
Hiram Maxim, the famous inventor of 
the rapid-fire gun, has been at work for 
years on the problem of aerial naviga¬ 
tion, and much was expected from the 
experiments upon which he has been en¬ 
gaged this year, but nothing has been 
divulged as to their nature or results. 
The fact that Maxim regards Santos- 
Dumont as deserving of most credit so 
far as present achievement is concerned 
would seem to indicate that if he has de¬ 
vised an airship it will prove to be one 
embodying the principle of flotation by 
the aid of gas. He has announced him¬ 
self as about ready to make known a new 
invention of importance as a result of 
work which he has been doing in this 
country, but he has not stated definitely 
that the invention is an airship. 

Louis Gathmann, another gun in¬ 
ventor, claims to have solved the prob¬ 
lem, but will not put his ideas to the test 
of practical application at present for the 
reason that the apparatus necessary 
would cost $138,000, a sum which he 
cannot command. Mr. Gathmann be¬ 
lieves that rotary motion alone offers the 
ultimate solution of the problem. With 
a miniature apparatus he has obtained 
power at an electric plant for a mechani¬ 
cal contrivance by which a parachute is 
forced upward by the force evolved in the 
revolutions of a fan wheel revolving: in a 


horizontal plane. This is not a new idea, 
having been embodied in a flying ma¬ 
chine exhibited in public more than a 
quarter of a century ago. Mr. Gathmann 
succeeded in lifting with one-horse power 
a weight of thirty-three pounds on a ro¬ 
tating blade. From this success he has 
worked out theoretically a flying machine 
which would have a 500-horse power 
engine in an airship weighing 2,500 
pounds, or two engines weighing 5,000 
pounds in an airship which, with its sup¬ 
ply of fuel, would weigh 15,000 pounds. 
His plan for two engines makes them a 
factor of safety and also a means of se¬ 
curing equilibrium. 

NOVEL MACHINES THAT FAIL 
TO FLY. 

Another inventor is Gustave White- 
head, of Bridgeport, Conn., who has 
adopted the Langley idea of aeroplanes 
and has devised an engine weighing only 
fifty-five pounds which will develop 
twelve-horse power at 2,500 revolutions. 
This engine has developed the specified 
power for ten hours, running on two 
gallons of kerosene. The aeroplane upon 
which Mr. Whitehead has been experi¬ 
menting is sixteen feet long, five feet 
wide, and has three planes. 

Dr. Jose Pena Fernandez, a young 
Spanish inventor, has an airship which, 
according to his description, is a dirigible 
balloon which, in case of collapse, will 
flutter to the ground in safety. The bal¬ 
loon part is built on a triangular alum¬ 
inum base. In the inventor’s drawings 
it resembles an egg cut longitudinally. 
The sides of the triangle are one hundred 
feet each and the base is thirty feet. Sus¬ 
pended fifty feet below the balloon is a 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


139 


bicycle seat, from which one of its two 
propellers can be operated by a pedal. 
The main propeller is at the apex of the 


at the rear end. A novel feature is a 
balance weight running backward or for¬ 
ward on a cable, by aid of which the 



Japanese torpedo-boat laying electric mechanical mines outside of Port Arthur. 


triangle, which is, in effect, the bow of 
the craft. It is operated by a thirty-horse 
power gasoline engine. The rudder is 


craft can be pointed up or down. In case 
of the balloon collapsing the machine is 
supported in the air by its triangular base. 


















140 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


CONFIDENCE OF AN INVENTOR. 

John Holland, of submarine boat fame, 
has invented a flying machine in which 
he, like all other flying machine invent¬ 
ors, confidently expects to fly. The ma¬ 
chine is nearly completed and a demon¬ 
stration is to be made shortly. Speaking 
of the device, Mr. Holland said recently: 
“There is not power enough in the wings 
of a bird to lift one-twentieth of its 
weight. The wings are only used for 
propulsion and to start the bird in its 
flight or retard progress when it desires 
to alight. A man has power enough in 
his arms and legs to accomplish all that 
a bird does ; provided he is supplied with 
the requisite aeroplanes and means of 
operating them as propellers. Once in 
motion it is merely a matter of moderate 
exertion to fly. 

“I will have no hesitation in* using my 
flying machine. It is much safer than a 
bicycle. I know that in the air I will be 
perfectly safe, yet I have never had nerve 
enough to mount a bicycle and take the 
risks of headers and collisions." 

AN INVENTOR CRITICISING 
NATURE. 

An airship inventor of the name of 
John F. Sterle, who is building an air- 
navigating machine in Milwaukee, says 
that when nature made the bird it made 
a mistake in not furnishing the bird with 


propellers instead of wings. The bird 
would have been much better off if it had 
thus been constructed, and it is part of 
the demonstration he will make before he 
has finished his air-navigating schemes 
to show conclusively that this is the case. 
He says further: Aeronauts who go out 
with the idea that their ships will rise 
by the mere application of machinery are 
demonstrating less brains than their ma¬ 
chines. You cannot overcome gravita¬ 
tion by machinery, and balloons are alto¬ 
gether out of the question. I do not in¬ 
tend to rise from the ground with my 
ship, perfect as it is. I shall build a huge 
platform, start my machinery, and will 
never come down, unless I apply the 
rudder, which you will find at the bottom 
of the boat. The rudder that will direct 
its course through space is applied in the 
rear of the machine, and is independent 
of the other. As soon as the public wakes 
up to the fact that I have the only prac¬ 
ticable machines ever invented, there will 
be a wild scramble for airships, more so 
than there is nowadays for automobiles. 
Every man will have to build a platform 
on his roof, from which to make his as¬ 
cent. By means of the rudders he can 
return as easily to his roof as a boat finds 
its way into the harbor. It is a surpris¬ 
ing fact that so little has been accom-. 
plished in this line up to the present time. 


WAR IN THE AIR. 

IN THE FUTURE WE SHALL HAVE certain that in the distant future the arm- 
A “FLYING FLEET.” aments of nations will include flying 

War in the air is not an immediate machines, 
possibility; but with the gradual develop- The possibilities of “War in the Air” 
ment of aerial navigation it is practically is a problem which must necessarily de- 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


141 


pend so much upon the details of the 
machines evolved. The great problem 
which must be first overcome is to invent 
a machine capable of carrying a great 
deal of ammunition, explosive shells, 
dynamite, and other high-power powder. 
Up to the present the powers of balloons 
and flying machines have not been capa¬ 
ble of carrying much dead weight. As 
a matter of fact, inventors are devoting 
all their skill to reducing weight in the 
effort to perfect a flying machine. 

SPYING BY KITE. 

Once, however, a machine can be made 
to carry a good supply of ammunition, 
it seems to me that sieges, such as we 
know them now—Port Arthur, for ex¬ 
ample—would become an impossibility. 

The Japanese do not appear to have 
made any use of balloons in their war 
against the Russians, and it is rather dif¬ 
ficult to find a reason for this; but they 
have made use of man-lifting kites ex¬ 
actly similar to those I have frequently 
experimented with, and which were pur¬ 
chased by the Japanese government from 
my agent about twelve months ago. 
Those kites are capable of lifting a man 
to an altitude of about 1,000 feet, and 
during the South African war experi¬ 
ments were made to manipulate a camera 
from that height with the object of se¬ 
curing photographs of the enemy’s lines. 
The results were not very good; but a 
camera is not at all necessary for that 
purpose if a man, sent up in the air by 
kite, has a good knowledge of what is 
required, and is capable of drawing sim¬ 
ple, but accurate, plans of the enemy’s 
lines. 

The nation which first gains possession 


of a really efficient airship, a machine 
capable of traveling at a great speed and 
remaining in the air for hours, will sim¬ 
ply revolutionize warfare. 

WHEN THE FLYING MACHINE 
COMES. 

That time will come when the flying 
machine reaches the same stage of evolu¬ 
tion as the submarine vessel stands to¬ 
day, and, as to how long it will be before 
we see a really efficient airship, every¬ 
thing must necessarily depend upon 
whether men will be found who will de¬ 
vote sufficient energy to experimenting. 
It seems to me to be entirely a matter of 
a man giving the subject his whole atten¬ 
tion, with wealth to back him up, to 
evolve a practical airship—a machine 
capable of fighting. 

An aerial warship would compel the 
nations to make drastic alterations in 
their armaments, in the first place. For 
instance, naval guns are unable to fire 
upwards—that is, their upward elevation 
is very slight, and they could not con¬ 
centrate direct fire on a machine hovering 
over the vessel; and, to a very large ex¬ 
tent, this applies to field artillery. It 
would become essential to introduce an 
entirely new weapon into both services 
to cope with an armed flying machine. 

The arming of an aCrial warship 
sounds a very difficult task, but once hav¬ 
ing secured a machine capable of carry¬ 
ing dead weight, the problem becomes at 
once half solved. As. I have already 
stated, inventors are at great pains for 
the moment to reduce to the lowest pos¬ 
sible maximum all weight, and Santos- 
Dumont has achieved fame for the light¬ 
ness of his apparatus. He carries a very 




142 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


small supply of ballast with him, and his 
machines are of the lightest possible de¬ 
scription. At the present moment I am 
engaged in reducing the weight o4 a 
motor, and the amount of time and 
trouble which it involves is enormous. 
It is a two-horse power motor, and, so 
far ? 1 have reduced the weight to less 
than twenty-five pounds. I hope to still 
further reduce it; but it shows the ten¬ 
dency of the moment, and nobody could 


conceive, unless they have tried, what 
time and labor such experiments entail. 

Mounting guns on a flying machine 
would be a delicate undertaking, but I 
can quite conceive that the time will ar¬ 
rive when flying machines will carry 
armament of no mean calibre. There 
should be no danger in using gunpowder, 
and I do not anticipate that the firing of 
a shot from an airship would throw the 
machine off its equilibrium. There would 
have to be careful adjustment, of course; 


but presuming that a ship was traveling 
at a great pace there should be little to 
fear on the question of balance. 

FORTS IN THE CLOUDS. 

Reverting again to the effect aerial 
warships would have on sieges, one must 
be struck with the great alterations which 
would have to be made in protecting 
fortifications. Forts would have to be 
protected with bomb-proof domes, and, 


even then, the effect of a high-power ex¬ 
plosive being dropped from an enormous 
height would be terrific in its results. 

With aerial warships in action, aerial 
fortifications would become a necessity, 
otherwise sieges would only last as long 
as an “aerial enemy” permitted, whilst 
the unprotected parts of fortified towns 
—and they would necessarily include the 
great naval dockyards—would be at its 
mercy. Aerial fortifications conjure up 
uncanny visions to the mind’s eye. 



Style of French submarine boat. 










TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


143 


WANTED! A DEFINITION. 

Military flying machines have been 
built for various governments, but none 
have turned out to be efficient. Dr. Bar¬ 
ton and Maxim built machines with the 
idea of using them in warfare, and Lang¬ 
ley built one for the American govern¬ 
ment. Because all efforts have failed up 
to now, however, I do not see that it 
means permanent failure. They are 
going ahead with aerial machines in 
America just at present, and in a few 

SPEED ON 

TURBINE AND ELECTRIC MOTORS 
CUTTING TIME. 

It took Christopher Columbus seventy 
days to cross the Atlantic Ocean—but 
that was four hundred years ago. At 
the present moment the fastest ship 
crosses in five days, six hours and twenty 
minutes. From seventy days to less than 
six days is a long jump, but Lewis 
Nixon, the Cramps and Richard B. Pain- 
ton, three expert ship builders and marine 
inventors, are getting ready to launch an 
ocean giant which will cross the ocean 
in three days—will, if necessary, make a 
round trip to England and hack again to 
New York, between Monday morning 
and Saturday night. 

This new transatlantic racer is to be 
christened the Meteor. When in the 
water she will look very much like one 
of the present big ocean steamships, the 
only particularly noticeable difference 
being that her smokestacks will be six 
in number. Four stacks is the largest 
number on any steamship now in com¬ 
mission. 


years we may see Englishmen take the 
problem in hand again. 

The Hague Convention was responsi¬ 
ble for some stupid remarks some time 
ago on the question of war in the air; 
but it is almost impossible to define in 
exact terms what really does constitute 
an aerial machine. A rocket or a shell 
may he called an aerial machine. It flies 
through the air and falls to the ground, 
just as a flying machine would do, the 
only difference being whether there is a 
man in it or not. 

THE SEA. 

But inside her hull and down under 
her water-line the machinery will be quite 
different from that of any of the great 
liners which are now making their trips 
from New York to Liverpool or South¬ 
ampton in about six days. 

SPEED LIKE AN EXPRESS TRAIN. 

Sixteen powerful screw propellers, 
operated by electric motor power, will 
drive the Meteor through the water at a 
uniform speed of about 45 miles an hour. 
This is equal to over 1,000 miles a day. 
The Oceanic, of the White Star line, 
which plows across the Atlantic in about 
six days with the greatest ease imagina¬ 
ble. has only two propellers, situated one 
on either side of the stern. It is easy to 
imagine from what the Oceanic does 
with two propellers, what the Meteor 
will do with sixteen. 

It will be possible for a business man 
to eat his breakfast in New York on 
Monday morning, preparatory to going 
aboard the steamer Meteor, which we 
will say is to sail at 5 a. m. With fa- 




144 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


vorable seas and the sixteen propellers 
driving the ship through the water at 
full speed he should reach Liverpool late 
Wednesday night. To he sure, he will 
not have much time to spend ashore if 
he has to be hack in New York by'Satur¬ 
day night, but the Meteor will he capable 
of getting him hack home again on time. 

Owing to the enormous speed at which 
the Meteor will travel it has been neces¬ 
sary to introduce several interesting inno¬ 
vations in shipbuilding plans in the con¬ 
struction of this newest and fastest of all 
ocean greyhounds. Chief among these is 
the very tall nose, or bow, which has been 
designed with a view to keeping the 
ship from dipping too deeply while cut¬ 
ting her way through head-on seas. Pas¬ 
sengers on the fastest ocean steamships 
have frec|uentlv noted with no small con¬ 
sternation the habit of their boat to push 
ahead right through the billows while 
going at full speed, instead of topping 
them as a slow-going steamer would. 
Even such enormous vessels as the 
Oceanic, which stand out of the water as 
high as a four or five-story building, have 
a habit of plunging straight through 
mountainous seas right ahead of them, 
so that the forward deck is completely 
submerged for a few moments. This 
will be obviated to a considerable extent 
in the construction of the Meteor, as 
stated above, by the extra tall bow, which 
rises sufficiently high above the water to 
clear the tops of the average billows to 
lie encountered in a trip across the At¬ 
lantic. 

The Meteor will measure 600 feet in 
length, with a 62-foot beam, and she will 
have a displacement of 30,000 tons. 
These figures, reduced to plain English, 


mean that she will .be slightly larger than 
the biggest Atlantic liners of the present 
day, with one or two possible exceptions. 

Her interior accommodations will be 
larger than those of any other ship afloat 
on account of the substitution of electric¬ 
ity for steam. There will be steam en¬ 
gines and batteries of boilers on the 
Meteor, of course, but only those of a 
new and compact type sufficiently large 
to drive the generating dynamos which 
will run the motors for turning the six- 
teen screw propellers. 

There are eight propellers on either 
side of the ship at the stern. They are 
arranged in twin sets, one propeller 
working behind its mate. Each pro¬ 
peller is built with only three blades, in¬ 
stead of the customary four blades. The 
reason for this is that if a four-bladed 
propeller w^ turned at the rate of 1,500 
revolutions per minute, at least two of 
the blades would sweep round and round 
without finding any water to offer re¬ 
sistance to the blade. The blade ahead 
would be too short a distance away to 
give the water time to fall back to meet 
the next blade. And so for the Meteor 
a special type of screw has been designed 
with only three fans placed equi-distant 
apart. 

THE LIMIT OF STEAM POWER. 

“One hundred and fifty revolutions per 
minute is the limit of steam power,” said 
Mr. Painton, the inventor of the multiple 
electric propeller. “The electric reversi¬ 
ble motors to be installed on the Meteor 
will make 1,500 revolutions per minute. 
The power is to be transmitted by elec¬ 
tric wires direct from the dynamos to 
motors built on the propeller shafts. No 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


belting or couplings will be required, and 
the machinery is simplicity itself. 

“I believe that there will be practically 
no limit to the speed at which the pro¬ 
pellers can be driven under this system. 
I have given the revolutions as 1.500 per 
minute because I estimate that to be the 
best uniform speed at which the Meteor's 
propellers will be driven. 

“The only noise made by the Meteor’s 
engines will be similar to that of a fly¬ 
wheel or fan in motion. Another ad¬ 
vantage is that the terrific and stuffy heat 
from furnaces and steam pipes will be 
obviated. 

“One distinct feature is that the screws 
extend from stem to stern, and thereby 
tend to maintain an equilibrium that will 
materially diminish the pitching and roll¬ 
ing motion of the vessel. The long shaft 
being dispensed with, there will be no 
thumping and clanking of machinery and 
no jar that would otherwise be felt from 
the horizontal motion.” 

NEW TURBINE ENGINES. 

The newest design of the most efficient 
turbine engine is to be used in driving 
the generating dynamos. This will repre¬ 
sent a great saving in weight of machin¬ 
ery and in space, which in the ordinary 
type of ocean liner has to be devoted to 
the coal. The average Atlantic passenger 
ship consumes about 500 tons of coal 
every day during the trip, or three thou¬ 
sand tons between New York and Liver¬ 
pool. The electrical and turbine engines 
to be installed in the Meteor will reduce 
the coal consumption per day by one-half. 
This alone will represent a saving of 
nearly $14,000 for coal for each voyage 
across the ocean. 


14 ? 


Air. Edwin S. Cramp of the famous 
Cramp shipbuilding firm, was among the 
first to recognize the value and adapta¬ 
bility of Inventor Painton’s reversible 
electric multiple propeller in connection 
with the turbine in constructing the 
three-day Atlantic liner. 

“It is a decided improvement,” he 
said, “upon the Turbinia, after which the 
Cobra and Viper, the speedy British tor¬ 
pedo boat destroyers, were built. In ad¬ 
dition to the enormous increase to be 
gained in speed there will be a great 
economy in fuel, space and steam. The 
employment of a reversible electric motor 
and dynamo to run the propeller shafts is 
a most important gain.” 

It will cost over $2,000,000 to com¬ 
plete the Meteor and fit her out for her 
first ocean voyage. If she succeeds in 
crossing the Atlantic in three days, three 
or four more ships of the same type will 
be built to operate a three-day service be¬ 
tween New York and one of the principal 
ports of England, presumably Liverpool 
or Southampton. 

With the Meteor in commission some 
interesting comparisons may be looked 
for between her performances and those 
of the two projected Cunarders, the Ca- 
ronia and Carmania. Both these vessels 
are to be of the turbine type and it has 
been estimated that they will be able to 
cross the ocean in five days flat. It is 
not yet known whether the new Cunard 
boats will be electrically propelled or not, 
but this is scarcely probable, as American 
shipbuilders who have combined to con¬ 
struct the Meteor control the exclusive 
patents taken out by Air. Painton for this 
system. The new Cunarders will have 
62,000-horse power, as compared with 




140 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the ioo,ooo-horse power equipment of 
the Meteor. 

A race between one of the turbine 
Cunarders and the Meteor will prove in¬ 
teresting whenever it takes place. In 
case the Caronia and Meteor sailed from 
New York for Liverpool on the same 
day, the Meteor could reach England, 


Star line, formed by Ismay & Imrie, with 
their Britannic, ran away with the ribbon 
in seven days ten hours and fifty-three 
minutes. Dethroned by the Inman line 
in 1889, when the City of Paris covered 
the 3,000-mile course in five days nine¬ 
teen hours and eighteen minutes, the 
White Star people regained the crown 



Submarine mines guarding a harbor entrance. The object of these mines is to guard the 
entrance. They are metal receptacles which hold a large charge of explosive. Some 
have a “contact head,” which if touched by a vessel explodes the mine. Others are dis¬ 
charged by electricity controlled from the shore, and fired when a ship is near. The 
Russians used the former in Fort Arthur. 


turn around and be more than half way 
back home again before the Cunard liner 
reached port in England. 

RECORDS OF SPEED. 

In 1850 the Britannia sailed from Bos¬ 
ton to Liverpool in fourteen days eight 
hours, which was then considered phe¬ 
nomenal time. Several vessels see-sawed 
for the crown until 1877. when the White 


when the Teutonic reduced the record by 
three hours. 

This record stood until the era of the 
great modern leviathans, inaugurated in 
i 8 93> when the Cunard Company floated 
the famous Campania and Lucania, 
which held the trophy in the order named 
until the appearance of the Kaiser Wil¬ 
helm der Crosse, in 1897. This great 
German ship, after warming up in sev- 












TRIUMPHS OF INF ENT rOU AND ENTERPRISE 


147 


eral remarkable trials, gained her stride 
in May, 1898, and with a gentle breeze 
and smooth sea she distanced all rivals 
in a westward run of five days seven 
hours and ten minutes. Her most'dan¬ 
gerous foe was to come from her own 
country, for the Deutschland, after co¬ 
quetting with the blue ribbon of the ocean 
for three years, bore it off with consid¬ 
erable ease last September, by racing 
from New York to Plymouth in the 
Queenstown time of five days six hours 
and twenty minutes. 

EVOLUTION OF* LOCOMOTIVES. 

Especially interesting alike to Ameri¬ 
can and European sightseers at the 
World’s Fair is the railroad exhibit of 
early types of locomotive engines. 

Stephenson’s locomotive of 1815, a 
sectional view of which is given in the 
illustration, is among the important fea¬ 
tures of the exhibit. This engine, an im¬ 
provement upon an earlier Stephenson 


Locomotives of 1833 and 1834. 

design, is fitted with two vertical cylin¬ 
ders, the connecting rods attached direct¬ 
ly to the four driving wheels. It has ball 
and socket joints to unite the rods with 
the cross-heads and cranks, and the two 
driving axles are connected by an endless 
chain. In this machine the forced draft 
obtained by the impulse of the exhaust 
steam was adopted, doubling the power 
of the machine and permitting the use of 
coke as a fuel. 

The steam coach “Autopsy,” made by 
Walter Hancock in 1833, ran from Lon¬ 


don to Brighton, next between Finsbury 
square and Pentonville, and for a time in 
the crowded streets of London, with 
much success. Its mechanical operation 
is shown in the illustration. The boiler 
supplied steam to a steam engine coupled 
to a crank shaft. 


Stephenson’s locomotives of 1815 and 1833. 

Gurney’s steam carriage, built in 1827, 
ran for nearly two years in and about 
London, and made several long journeys, 
one a distance of eighty-five miles in ten 
hours, including all stops. His improved 
engine of 1828, shown in the illustration, 
is of special interest as exhibiting a very 
excellent arrangement of machinery, and 
as having one of the earliest of “sectional 
boilers.” This is regarded as one of the 
best designs brought out at that time. 

In 1834 Matthias W. Baldwin, founder 
of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, built 
for Mr. E. L. Miller, of Charleston, S. C., 



Sectional view of the Gurney steam carriage. 

a six-wheeled engine called the “E. L. 
Miller,” with cylinders ten inches in 
diameter. He made the boiler of this 
engine of a form which remained stand¬ 
ard many years, with a high dome over 
the firebox. 



























































US 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FASTEST RAILWAY TIME EVER MADE. 


Mr. Volkmann was one of the privi¬ 
leged few who have traveled in the new 
electric express between Marienfelde and 
Zossen, near Berlin—fifteen miles in eight 
minutes. The journey was one of a series 
arranged as tests by some German engi¬ 
neers, aided by the War Office, and dur¬ 
ing the run a speed of 130^2 miles an 
hour was attained—a world’s railway 
record. 

Before starting the writer was insured 
against risks in the Deutsche Bank. The 
chief excitement was to watch the meter 
record the gradually increasing speed. 
The car is 70 feet long, somewhat boat¬ 
like in shape; at each end its windows 
meet in a point, a kind of nose to pierce 
the air in front, and at each end also 
there is a place for the motorman. On 
each side of the car is a system of resist¬ 
ances designed to catch the air and carry 
it inside in currents for cooling purposes. 
The track, of course, is unlike an ordi¬ 
nary track. Four, not two, rails are laid, 
and broken rock is set as ballast, the 
object of the double track being' to pre¬ 
vent the train jumping the rails. Even 
now it is doubtful how a curve could be 
negotiated at such a speed, the Zossen 
line being almost straight. The follow¬ 
ing description of the trip will be read 
with interest by many: 

The motorman slowly turned on the 
current of 14,000 volts, and the car be¬ 
gan to move gradually forward. As it 
did so, it made a humming noise, but 
we felt no kind of sensation or jerkiness, 
the motion being smoothness itself. Our 
first recorded speed was only forty-five 
miles, but in a little over a mile this 


had increased to sixty-eight, and then to 
eighty-five. 

Faster and faster, and we had reached 
a speed of 105 miles, when my sensa¬ 
tions of rapid travel began in earnest. 
There was, of course, the old illusion of 
passing objects. Trees, buildings, posts, 
seemed to be rushing past us, and we our¬ 
selves to be stationary. All the time we 
felt a desire to go faster and faster. 
Even when traveling at 130 miles an hour 
we chafed that we moved so slowly. 

Once we had attained our high speed 
we began to notice a strange, puzzling, 
musical sound—a continuous hum. Even 
my experienced fellow-travelers them¬ 
selves could not exactly account for it, 
as it did not come from any vibration of 
machinery; but at length we found the 
solution. Our passage was so furious 
that stones, sand, dust—every movable 
object on the track, whipped in dozens 
against the carriage with such rapidity as 
to give forth a sustained note. A rush¬ 
ing sound behind 11s came from nothing 
else than the fallen autumn leaves, which 
followed us in a cyclone. 

Stranger, and rather gruesome, was the 
sight that greeted us on the windows of 
the train as we got nearer to Zossen. We 
were traveling literally in an engine of 
death, for crushed against the glass panes 
in scores were the dead of the insect 
world. Wasps, bees, gnats, flies, had 
been caught in their flight, and the win¬ 
dows were literally stained with their 
blood. Not even birds escaped the ap¬ 
proaching monster, the death of several 
being signalled to us by sudden raps on 
the glass. 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISI 


149 



Unique elevator bridge over the Chicago river. 


































150 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SPEED OF RAILROAD TRAINS. 

On May 25, 1903, a train on the Lake 
Shore Railroad made the run from To¬ 
ledo to Elkhart, a distance of 133.4 miles, 
in one hour and fifty-four minutes, or at 
an average speed of 70.2 miles an hour. 

A New York Central train in March 
did 91 miles at a speed of 71 miles an 
hour. The fastest long distance run of 
the year was made by an Atchison, To¬ 
peka & Santa Fe train, between Chicago 
and Los Angeles, a distance of 2,267 
miles. This was made in 52 hours and 
49 minutes, or at an average speed of 
42.8 miles an hour, including stops. The 
fastest recorded time ever made was ac¬ 
complished on the military road between 
Marienfelde and Zossen, in Germany, on 
October 6, 1903, when a speed of 125.8 
miles an hour was developed. This road 
is electrically operated, by the three-phase 
system. The car used in the test was 
equipped with four motors, capable of 
developing 1,100 horse power. At this 
rate of speed Philadelphia could be 
reached from New York in 43 minutes, 

STABLING THE 

LOCOMOTIVES AFTER A RUN 
RECEIVE A THOROUGH¬ 
BRED’S CARE. 

Anyone at all familiar with railroads 
has seen the engineer dismount from the 
cab, oil can in hand, as soon as the train 
has come to a stop at some way station; 
seen him walk slowly about the pon¬ 
derous machine, feeling of each bearing 
with his free hand as he filled the cups 
with oil; seen him, perhaps, tap a valve 
gently with a wrench or examine critic¬ 
ally some ill-working air pump. 


and the distance from New York to Buf¬ 
falo, 439/4 miles, could be made in three 
hours and a half. Another test made on 
the Marienfelde-Zossen road later in 
October was reported to have resulted in 
a speed of more than 130 miles an hour. 

EXTENT OF RAILROADS IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

In 1851 the American Railway Guide 
for the United States, published in New 
York, consisted of 144 pages, S l A x 3 H 
inches. It contained the time tables and 
information regarding 149 railroads. 
But the Official Guide for the United 
States for August, 1902, contains the 
time tables and information regarding 
957 railways, requiring over 900 pages, 
734xi o}i inches, to show it. In 1851 
there were a little over 9,000 miles of 
railway open for traffic in the United 
States. In 1903 there were more than 
200,000 miles in operation, with new 
lines constantly being built and others 
projected. 

IRON HORSE. 

To any man all this is interesting, but 
how many are there in all the vast crowd 
that enter the city daily at the great ter¬ 
minals who can tell offhand what be¬ 
comes of the train when once the cars 
are emptied of the passengers? To be 
sure, they have seen the cars on a siding 
out in the yard. They know, perhaps, 
that a roundhouse is a pla.ee where en¬ 
gines are kept when not in actual use. 
But beyond this the ideas of the ordinary 
man are a bit hazy. 

As soon as the passengers have left a 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


151 


train that has just come in from a long, 
dusty run it is backed out into the yard 
and the cars are set off on a side track. 
Men go upon them at once and begin to 
put them in readiness for the next trip. 
The windows are washed, cars freed from 
filth and dirt, seats cleaned, water tanks 
cared for and the lighting apparatus put 
in order. 

PUT IN THE ROUNDHOUSE. 

The locomotive, after leaving the 
cars, proceeds at once to the roundhouse, 
where the ponderous machine also re¬ 
ceives a proper overhauling. First of all, 
the tanks are filled with water and the 
fuel supply is replenished. Then a few 
puffs bring the firebox above the ashpit, 
where the fires are cleaned and dumped 
all together. The next thing is to stable 
the great iron horse. 

The roundhouse itself is a most unin¬ 
viting place, with its soot-begrimed walls 
and smoky interior. These buildings are 
all constructed on the same general lines, 
low, one-story structures, generally built 
of brick and semicircle in shape. The 
centre of the circle is the centre of the 
turntable. Arranged along the inner side 
of the building is a line of doors, each ex¬ 
actly like its neighbor. Under each runs 
a track of standard gauge, giving the 
whole an appearance not unlike a spider’s 
web, the centre of which is the turntable. 

The turntable itself consists of a pit 
walled with stone, across which is a 
bridge free at the ends but balanced at 
the centre on a spindle. Rails are laid 
across this, as if it were part of the road¬ 
bed. 

When the fires of the locomotive have 
been cared for the engineer runs his ma¬ 
chine upon the table. With deft hand at 


the throttle he brings it to a stop at the 
precise point where the hundred tons of 
steel balance on the spindle that sup¬ 
ports the bridge. Then the ponderous 
mass is slowly revolved until the required 
track is reached and the engine is backed 
into the roundhouse. • 

ENGINEER’S WORK IS DONE. 

Once within the house the engineer’s 
duty is done. He has but to go 
to the office and report in a book prepared 
for the purpose any repairs that are 
needed, and he can go home assured that 
his machine will be ready for him when 
he starts on the next run. 

The engine is now turned over to the 
roundhouse crew, who go to work on it 
at once. The attention that a locomotive 
receives on arrival at the roundhouse is 
about the same as one would expect to see 
bestowed upon a race horse. Wipers go 
over every inch of the surface carefully, 
removing all dust and oil. Others drop 
into the pit beneath the machine and 
wipe the running gear. The headlight 
is carefully cared for and the brass pol¬ 
ished. In fact, the whole machine is put 
in first-class shape in every way. 

Throughout this work keen watch is 
kept for any signs of broken parts, and 
any found are repaired. The hundred or 
more flues are cleaned by steam pressure. 

An engine seldom comes to the house 
that does not need repairs of some sort. 
The delicate mechanism is constantly be¬ 
coming broken, and unceasing attention 
is required. 

TIGHTENING DRIVE WHEEL 
TIRES. 

One of the most interesting of all the 
repairs that are made in the roundhouse 




152 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


is the tightening of the tires on the drive 
wheels. Each wheel is surrounded with 
a heavy steel tire. These occasionally 
work loose, and it becomes necessary that 
they be tightened without sending the 
locomotive to the shops. 

To do this a stream of oil is fed auto¬ 
matically upon the tire and allowed to 
burn as it runs down. The result is that 
the whole rim is soon a circle of flame. 
That is kept up for a long time, and the 
tire, being heated faster than the wheel 
itself on account of the proximity of the 
fire, expands until the thin pieces of sheet 
iron can be inserted between the wheel 

GREAT 

COAST DEFENSES OF THE 
GOVERNMENT. 

The most advanced type of carriage on 
these guns is known as the United 
States disappearing carriage and is from 
the designs of Buffington and Crozier. 
Because of the perfection of this carriage 
over those formerly in use Crozier was 
promoted from captain to brigadier-gen¬ 
eral and was made chief of the ordnance 
department. This is the longest jump 
ever made in any one branch of the army 
and is exceeded only by that of Gen. 
Leonard Wood, who was promoted from 
the medical to the service department. 

In its principle the carriage is prac¬ 
tically a lever. On one end rests the gun 
and at the other is the force which raises 
the gun from the loading to the firing 
position. The fulcrum of the lever is in 
the middle and is movable, sliding back¬ 
ward and forward on rails. When the 
gun is to be raised to the firing position 
counterpoise slightly heavier than the 
loaded gun comes into play and sinks 


and the tire. When the tire has again 
become cold it contracts and clutches the 
wheel hard and fast. 

The cumbersome repairs, such as turn¬ 
ing down worn drive wheels and replac¬ 
ing boilers, go to the shops, where lathes, 
cranes and forges are to be had. But 
all the minor troubles are remedied at the 
“stables,” and the foreman of the round¬ 
house is responsible for the condition of 
the engines. He is the man to whom all 
look in an emergency and it is he who 
must look forward and plan for the re¬ 
pairs in such a way as not to interfere 
with the regular operation of the trains. 

GUNS. 

downward in a pit below the carriage. 
This weight is released by an electrical 
device which can be operated from any 
convenient distance. 

The recoil of the gun, when it is fired, 
is sufficient to send it traveling backward 
and at the same time the weight is raised 
and held by a catch until the gun is to 
be put into firing position again, when 
the catch simply lets go and the weight 
does the work. On its recoil the gam 
always comes into a proper position for 
loading, and when it is raised comes up 
at the same angle at which the last shot 
was fired. 

The sighting of the gun is done while 
it is in the loading positon and the gun 
need not be exposed above the parapet 
for more than a few seconds, while the 
projectile is being discharged. 

Traveling tongs suspended from a trol¬ 
ley arrangement pick up the shot from 
the galleries below the gun and run it 
to the hoisting elevator, which takes the 
shot and four bags of smokeless powder 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


153 


for the load up to the charging platform. 
After the tongs are placed about the shot, 
men’s hands hardly touch it in its pro¬ 
gress into the breech of the gun. The 
bags of smokeless powder are loaded by 
hand. 

Every part of the machinery of the 
gun is operated by electricity. The car¬ 
riage is raised and swung about into the 


turned from side to side and their posi¬ 
tion to the right or left of the central 
line on the scale at their base determines 
the place towards which the gun must be 
pointed. 

Although the projectile leaves the gun 
with a velocity of 2300 feet (almost half 
a mile) a second the gun is never trained 
on the moving object which it is expected 



A Japanese defense and siege gun. It is what is known as a 10-inch gun. mounted upon 
a disappearing carriage. The gun alone weighs 21 tons, and the carriage 61 tons. It 
fires a projectile 475 lbs. at a velocity of 1,900 ft. per second. 


proper position for firing with perfect 
ease, and when the final aim is taken 
the gun is discharged by an electric spark. 

RANGE FINDERS FOR GREAT 
GUNS. 

Two range finders are installed with 
eaich gun, as they are an important part 
of the gun's activity and usefulness. 
These are telescopes much like those on 
a surveyor’s instruments. They can be 


to hit, but is pointed some distance ahead 
of it. It is one of the niceties of the art 
of war to so point the gun that the ship 
to be destroyed and the projectile, reach 
the same place at the same time. 

While the projectile is traveling eight 
miles in six seconds the ship, if traveling 
at a 12-mile-an-hour rate, has advanced 
nearly 108 feet, and to calculate the spot 
at which both will come together is the 
work of the officers in charge of the range 





















154 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


finders. The calculation is an elaborate 
one, but it must be accurately done in 
a few seconds after the readings of the 
range finders are telephoned to the “plot¬ 
ting room,” as it is called. 

In spite of the difficulties attendant 
upon such rapid-fire mathematics the 
huge guns, when fired at a target mov¬ 
ing at the rate of 12 miles an hour, have 
a record of four hits out of four shots 
fired, in less than five minutes. 

ACCURACY OF GREAT GUNS. 

So great is the accuracy of the gun¬ 
ners that captains of tugs which tow the 
target, with only 500 feet of rope between 
them and the target, have said repeatedly 
that they never feel the least anxiety. 

Various tales are told of the severity 
of the shock when these big guns are fired 
and its effects on the ears of the gunners. 
Most of the stories are more spectacu- 
'lar than true. Some captains do advise 
their men to put cotton in their ears, but 
the shock, even to the man on the gun 
platform, is much less than to one who 
stands a quarter of a mile in front of the 
muzzle. 

The angle of the parapet protects the 
man behind the gun, although it does 
not protect the doors of the fort. These 
doors are of iron and are strongly fixed 
in their frames, but quite often they are 
torn from their hinges by the suction of 
the air, as a vacuum is created when the 
gun is fired. 

Each of the iooo-pound shells is filled 
with a modern high explosive known to 
the department as “explosive D.” It is 
the best that has ever been discovered 


as its rate of explosion is not so rapid 
as that of guncotton, which has a tend¬ 
ency to break the projectile to small bits 
and do little damage. 

The shell is exploded by a “delay ac¬ 
tion” fuse, which allows the shell to pene¬ 
trate the interior of a ship before it shat¬ 
ters. This fuse is timed to explode a cer¬ 
tain fraction of a second after it strikes 
armor plate. It will penetrate a 9-inch 
Krupp plate at a distance of 7,000 yards. 

The cost of one of these guns is 
enormous. Forty years ago a small fleet 
of battle-ships could have been built for 
the cost of a fully equipped emplacement 
containing a 12-inch rifle and carriage. 
The projectiles are made of hardened 
steel and they, too, are costly. The serv¬ 
ice armor-piercing kind are never used in 
practice, cast-iron being substituted. 

It has been estimated that the life of 
the best 12-inch gun is 500 shots. After 
this number have been fired the rifling 
grooves become so worn down that the 
gun goes to the scrap heap and then to 
the furnaces, where it is melted and cast 
anew. 

1 he six-inch rifle is on a carriage simi¬ 
lar to the 12-inch, except that it has no 
motor to move it from side to side. It 
is so accurately poised that it can be 
moved around with one finger. 

The 12-inch coast defense mortar is 
never raised above the edge of the forti¬ 
fication, but it has a record of one out 
of four shots dropped upon a target mov¬ 
ing at the rate of 12 miles an hour. 
These guns send their projectiles five 
miles into the air and the difficulty of 
correct aim is vastly increased. 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


155 


GREATEST BATTLE-SHIPS. 


SIX NEW BRITISH CRUISERS 
THAT COST $40,000,000. 

The batteries of these battle-ships are 
such as never before have been put into 
any fighting ship, on a displacement of 
16,500 tons, or 150 tons larger than the 
previous largest. They will carry four¬ 
teen big armor-piercing guns. 

The advantage in the new ships lies 
in their greater number of 9.2-inch guns. 
This weapon is the most powerful in ex¬ 
istence, firing a 380-pound shell two or 
three times a minute, and driving it 
through thirty-five inches of iron. It is 
more powerful than any gun of similar 
type mounted in foreign battle-ships. The 
four 12-inch guns fire 850-pound shells 
through some four feet of iron. 

The four new armored cruisers are 
also to be remarkable for size, being the 


largest cruisers built for the British or 
any other navy. They are to be known 
as the Minotaur class, and will steam 
twenty-three knots. They displace 14,- 
600 tons each, or 400 tons more than 
the Drake class. They will carry four 
9.2-inch guns each, of the same type as 
those in the Lord Nelson class, and ten 
of the new 7.5-inch guns, which fire four 
200-pound shells a minute through more 
than two feet of iron. 

GREATEST WAR-SHIPS AFLOAT. 

Both the cruisers and battle-ships will 
beyond comparison be the best vessels of 
their class afloat. The six new ships 
will represent a capital of $40,000,000. 
They are equipped with coils of tubes 
for the water boilers, thus generating 
steam rapidly and powerfully. 


THE LOUISIANA. 


MOST POWERFUL WAR VESSEL 
IN THE WORLD. 

The Louisiana is typical of the present 
climax of the art of battle-ship designing, 
and nothing now building abroad is her 
equal. For a fighting machine she will 
represent when ready for sea service a 
formidable mass of 18,000 tons of shod 
might, and the single craft that shall 
stand in her way has everything against 
her. The Louisiana will have a water¬ 
line length of 450 feet and a maximum 
beam of 77 feet. Her moderate draft of 
24feet will make it possible for her 
to carry on an aggressive warfare in wa¬ 
ters ordinarily too shallow for foreign 
ships of lesser powers, while she will be 


able to safeguard our seaports on the 
gulf. 

The ship will have a maximum speed 
of eighteen knots an hour, and she will 
carry 2,200 tons of coal, which will be 
enough to give her a radius of action of 
twenty-five days’ steaming a twelve-knot 
jog. Her great engines will develop 16,- 
500 horse-power. 

The fighting equipment of the vessel 
will consist of no fewer than seventy-six 
guns. The main battery, will be a force 
of four 12-inch, eight 8-inch and twelve 
7-inch breech-loading rifles. The sec¬ 
ondary battery will be made up of twenty 
14-pounders, twelve 3-pounders, six 1- 
pounders of a murderous automatic type. 



156 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


two i-pounders of a semi-automatic de¬ 
sign, two 3-inch field pieces for landing 
parties and eight small machine guns. 
All of the guns of the secondary bat¬ 
tery are rapid-fire, and so, too, should 
the 7-inch guns of the main battery be 
termed, for they will be able to fire three 
or four times a minute. This 7-inch gun 
is the essentially novel feature of the 
ship’s batteries, and at the proving 
grounds has shown the remarkable ve¬ 
locity of 3,000 feet a second, the 165- 
pound shot being fired by a charge of 
only seventy-four pounds of smokeless 
powder. The 12-inch guns fire 850- 
pound projectiles and the 8-inch guns fire 
shell weighing 250 pounds. In a minute’s 
time, from either broadside, the Louisiana 
could discharge from her main battery 
alone more than five tons of case-hard¬ 
ened steel. 

To safeguard the vessel against an 
enemv’s shot, she will carry a wider and 
more generous distribution of armor than 

MARVELS OF THE 

If a mariner could be resurrected from 
ancient Phoenicia and take a trip from 
New York to Liverpool on the new White 
Star liner Baltic he would think that he 
had never been on earth before. 

The magnificent new ocean liner is one 
vast complex and elaborate machine—a 
triumph of human genius, scientific com¬ 
putation and mechanical skill. It safely 
carries 3,000 passengers and a crew of 
300 men beside. But a town of 3.300 
inhabitants is quite a community, and 
might have a mayor. Such absurdities 
have occurred. The great ship also at 
the same time transports 28,000 tons of 


heretofore allowed. The water line belt 
will reach from bow to stern, and it will 
be nine feet three inches wide, with a 
maximum thickness of eleven inches for 
a distance of 200 feet amidships in wake 
of the boiler and engine region. Thence 
forward and aft, respectively, it will 
gradually taper to four inches at the bow 
and the stern. Immediately above this 
heavy amidship section, for a distance of 
284 feet, and reaching up to the gun deck, 
the sides will be six inches thick, while 
above this again to the main deck and 
throughout the region occupied by the 
7-inch guns the sides will be seven inches 
thick. Heavy athwartship bulkheads, six 
and seven inches thick, will guard the 
ship from a raking fire. The protective 
deck, which will reach from end to end 
of the ship, will be one and one-half inches 
thick on the flat portion and five inches 
thick on the sloping sides. 

The Louisiana will have the immense 
complement of 800 officers and men. 

GREAT STEAMSHIPS. 

freight. Thus, not only the inhabitants 
of the town and the mayor could be borne 
across the sea, but everything in the 
miniature city, for it is not likely that 
all the goods in the stores and household 
effects of all the people would weigh 
more than 28,000 tons. 

The colossal engines indicate 13,000 
horse-power. A procession of 13,000 
horses would be an impressive spectacle, 
if they were all of equal strength and 
were tugging at full capacity, trying to 
move one object. A “horse-power” is 
any power that can raise a weight of 
33,000 pounds one foot high in one min- 



TRIUMPHS OP INTENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


157 


ute. It will be seen how great is the 
force required to drive this monster 
through the waves. 

it has the honor of being a scientific 
ship; that is, every part of it has been 
in the grasp of mathematics. Every de¬ 
tail of ship and machinery was subjected 
to computation by skilled mathematicians 
before a hand was raised to build it. For 
scientific men now know what they are 


to insure safety. It has quadruple ex¬ 
pansion engines with double screws. And 
they are so arranged that “vibrations” 
are eliminated. The most elaborate sys¬ 
tem of water-tight chambers is installed, 
so that the ship would not sink, even if 
in .collision. The news of the world ap¬ 
pears in the daily papers, printed on 
board, as received by the “wireless.” 

As wonderful as this might appear to 



How the same gun as shown on page 153 can be lowered out of sight. The whole of the 
lower mechanism, as well as the gun itself, can be hidden in the earth and only raised 
for firing. 


about before they act. The cooking is 
done by electricity, and also the refriger¬ 
ation. Ice for cooling is frozen by elec¬ 
trically actuated apparatus. This saves 
loading up with tons of ice in port. Com¬ 
plete ventilation is also secured by elec¬ 
tricity. Each stateroom has electric 
communication with “central,” and they 
are supplied with electric utensils, chaf¬ 
ing dishes, heaters, etc. 

The highest skill has been displayed 


our Phoenician friend, there is another 
and equal wonder. It is the marvelous 
electric indicator to detect the approach 
of any other steamer, even in the densest 
fog. It seems endowed with intelligence 
—electro-magnetic intelligence—for if a 
ship enters its magnetic field, whose 
diameter is ten miles, the needle of the 
indicator turns and points in the exact 
direction of the intruder. More remark¬ 
able still, the revolutions of the screw 


















158 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


of the oncoming vessel are recorded. 
Collisions are almost impossible, unless 
with icebergs, and their proximity is 
known by means, of sensitive thermo- 
graphs. 

The focus of the ship is on the bridge, 
and the officer in charge has knowledge 
of the great living creature and of ad¬ 
jacent space. 

The length of this majestic triumph of 
human genius is 725 feet. Multiply 13,- 
000 by 33,000 to find the number of 
pounds push required to move the marine 
monster. 

And now a mighty fact stands out— 
enough radiant energy from the sun con¬ 
tinuously falls on the deck of the Baltic, 
in absence of clouds—to run the engines, 
if it could be rescued from waste and 
changed to mechanical power. 

The earth is 93,000,000 miles from the 
sun; and the surface of a sphere with 
this radius would afford room for two 


billion one hundred million worlds like 
ours, each of which would receive the 
same quantity of energy. Of all problems 
now confronting man, the one supreme 
in importance is to utilize the vast power 
now sinking into oblivion in the appall¬ 
ing deserts of frigid space. 

Scarcelv less in interest than the use 

j 

of power direct from the sun is the adop¬ 
tion of high pressure alternating currents 
of electricity on railways. It is now a 
success in Germany, for the Union Elec¬ 
trical Society in Berlin has discarded low 
pressure continuous for high alternating 
on a standard gauge road. The possi¬ 
bilities in the use of electricity in this 
manner are so vast as to be almost be¬ 
yond all computation or conjecture, and 
the mind is bewildered. The attention 
of the world will soon be attracted to 
this marvelous conquest of nature’s most 
formidable agency. 


LIFE-SAVING SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES. 


For administrative purposes, the sea- 
coast and lake shores of the United States 
have been divided into twelve districts, 
each with its quota of life-saving stations, 
consequently a chosen corps from the en¬ 
tire organization represents a high order 
of discipline and ability. 

The service is arduous day and night, 
as well as extra hazardous when the in¬ 
cident of a shipwreck calls for the saving 
of life in a storm. During the winter 
a constant patrol along the coast is main¬ 
tained, the various life-saving crews go¬ 
ing on guard detail for this patrol work 
in successive relays. The stations in the 
same coast territory are connected by 


telephone, so that when necessity arises 
one station may call another to its assist¬ 
ance or notify it of a vessel in distress 
that has been seen. Each of the twelve 
districts is under the command of a super¬ 
intendent, and each life-saving station is 
commanded by a keeper. The former, 
though supposed to exercise but a gen¬ 
eral supervision, often personally assists 
in the work of rescue. Of their small 
number two have been drowned of late 
years, one has escaped that fate by the 
merest chance, and another has died of 
exposure. 

The keeper of a life-saving station 
sweeps with his marine glass as much of 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


159 


the coast as is within range, keeping an 
especially close watch in stormy weather. 
He is also in telephone touch with the 
keepers of nearby lighthouses, who at 
once notify him if they have espied a ship 
in distress. In the event that a rescue is 
necessary, the station keeper musters his 
crew, directs the work and personally 
serves alongside his men. The crews of 
some stations are engaged in fishing or 
boating business of their own, but are 
subject to call at any hour. At the more 
perilous points they are exclusively in 
the life-saving service. 

A NOTABLE CREW. 

The station at Evanston, 111 ., on Lake 
Michigan, has a crew which, with the 
exception of the keeper, is composed ex¬ 
clusively of students of the Northwestern 
University, and this collegiate crew has 
so greatly distinguished itself for pluck 
and efficiency that every member wears 
the government gold medal awarded for 
bravery. 

The rescuing of persons imperiled by 
shipwreck must be done in one of two 
ways, either by the life-saving crews go¬ 
ing out to them in surf-boats or by firing 
a line to them from the Lyle gun, in¬ 
vented for that purpose, and then em¬ 
ploying the breeches buoy to bring them 
ashore on the cable life-line thus made 
possible. 

PERILOUS SERVICE. 

The more perilous of the two, from 
the standpoint of the life-saving crews, is 
that in which the surf-boat is brought 
into service. 

This is resorted to in cases where the 
firing of a life line to the distressed vessel 


is not practicable. The big surf-boat is 
hastened to the beach on a wagon con¬ 
structed for that purpose. Its launching 
into the sea during a storm is a very 
dangerous task, recpiiring courage, 
strength and skill of unusual order. The 
members of the crew often range them¬ 
selves on either side of the boat and force 
it out through the surf, springing into 
their appointed places at the proper 
moment, as best they can. Then begins 
the terrific hand-to-hand battle with the 
waves and wind, the master oarsmen 
bending themselves to the herculean task 
of sending their boat seaward in spite of 
the efforts of the gale and billows to hurl 
it back on shore, shattered and useless. 
The surf-boat is a mere cockle-shell op¬ 
posed to the furious elements, but human 
skill, intelligence and courage are behind 
it and it is commonly the victor in such 
a contest, though there are many cases 
of failure and disaster attendant upon its 
launching. Once well out from the shore, 
however, the strain on the men and boat 
is comparatively relaxed. 

More often than not, when a surf-boat 
has successfully made its way out to a 
vessel in distress the storm prevents its 
going directly to the side under the im¬ 
pulsion of the oars. In this case the boat 
is steadied some little distance away and 
a “heaving stick,” with a line attached, 
is hurled to the deck of the ship. A 
heavier line is “bent on” to this light line 
by the ship’s crew and drawn back to the 
surf-boat by the life savers, and the surf- 
hoat is then cautiously warped up to the 
ship’s side and the work of rescue begun. 
There have been instances where life-sav¬ 
ing crews worked continuously for twen¬ 
ty-four hours at this perilous task. 





100 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 



Life-saving station showing design with slight variations of all the stations about the Great Lakes. 














































TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


161 


WHEN A SHIP IS GOING TO 
PIECES. 

When a ship is going to pieces near 
the shore, the Lyle gun is brought into 
service. The gun-carriage, or “gun- 
cart,” as the life savers call it, is run 
down to the water’s edge and sometimes 
into the very surf itself. The gun used 
for this service carries a projectile to 
which a light-weight line is attached, the 
line being reeled up on another part of 
the carriage. It is here that the station 
keeper’s gunnery counts, for he must so 
aim the gun that its projectile will pass 
directly over the endangered vessel, al¬ 
lowing the line to fall across the deck. 
Once this is done, a heavy cable soon 
stretches from the shore to the ship, and 


along this cable, by means of a machine 
operated by the life-saving crew, a 
“breeches buoy” is sent out to the rescue. 
The breeches buoy is simply a heavy 
leather contrivance into which the legs 
are slipped and from which it is impos¬ 
sible for one to fall. It is run to and 
fro along the cable, which, being swung 
from the crosstrees on the ship’s mast, 
permits the buoy to be drawn shoreward, 
running along the life-line on a heavy 
pulley, with as little contact with the surf 
as is possible under storm conditions. In 
the cases of panic-stricken women or un¬ 
conscious persons, the members of the 
life-saving crew bring them ashore, the 
rescuers using the “breeches buoy” and 
hearing the rescued in their arms. 


SPECIAL FEATS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE. 


THE PYRHELIOPHORO. 

The structure is of steel, an immense 
skeleton affair forty-two feet high, with 
a wing-like reflector of separate steel slats, 
each set with such mathematical accuracy 
that the slightest deviation of a curve 
may prove disastrous. 

The machine sits on a true north and 
south line, and is built to resist any cy¬ 
clone or electrical storm. It is so con¬ 
structed that the reflecting gridiron may 
•be adjusted at any time of day to meet 
the sun. The rays are concentrated from 
a reflecting area 6,170 times that of the 
heating surface, which is a small point, 
not more than six inches in diameter, in 
the upper centre of a steel crucible the 
size of an ordinary barrel, at the point of 
focus. This crucible is lined with mag¬ 
nesia, the plumbago previously used hav¬ 
ing proved inadequate in a temperature 


of 2,000 degrees centigrade, 3,632 de¬ 
gree Fahrenheit. 

The problem of energy for practical 
uses will he solved when power can be 
taken from the sun from solar machines. 

EXPLORING THE BOTTOM OF 
THE SEA. 

What Galileo did in the way of explor¬ 
ing the heavens his fellow-countryman, 
Cavaliere Giuseppe Pino, is doing in the 
way of exploring the sea depths. In 
place of the telescope Signor Pino has 
invented the hydroscope, and by it the 
bottom of the sea can be examined with 
a clearness and ease which have hitherto 
been impossible. 

The hydroscope is constructed of steel 
and in shape is like a huge telescope 
pointed downward into coral caverns or 
sunken ships instead of upward at the 




162 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


sun or the stars. Its complex system of 
lenses, twelve in number, answers to the 
objective glass of a celestial telescope. 
Together with the internal mirrors they 
produce a very clear picture of the sea 
bottom, the rays of light passing up the 
tube to a sort of camera-obscure house at 
the top which floats above the surface 
and is capable of holding four people. 

The amount of light under the surface 
is considerably greater than is generally 
imagined. The inventor of the hydro¬ 
scope has himself been able to read a 
newspaper lying on the sea bottom at a 
depth of 300 feet from the surface by 
the ordinary daylight penetrating the 
water. The area viewed by the lenses at 
the bottom of the tube varies according to 
the amount of light. The water at the 
bottom of the sea is very often clearer 
than at the surface, as the sediment is 
capable of sinking in tbe still water, 
whereas at the surface sand and other 
matter is kept in solution by the constant 
movement of the waves, the force of 
which is not felt a very few feet beneath 
the surface. 

The hydroscope is also likely to prove 
of very considerable use on war vessels. 
A tube can be fitted into the center of the 
vessel, one end of which will lead to the 
captain's bridge and the other will pene¬ 
trate the bottom of the vessel and will 
have an extension portion which will be 
canable of being thrust out and drawn 
back as occasion requires, like a gigantic 
crab’s eye. When the hydroscope lenses, 
which will be somewhat different to the 
apparatus illustrated here, are drawn up 
flush with the bottom of the vessel the 
water beneath the ship can be viewed to 


a distance of sixty to ninety feet. A pri¬ 
vate official trial of the hydroscope was 
made by the Italian government a few 
months ago in Portofino Harbor, where 
it proved very satisfactory. 

One of the most romantic things yet 
accomplished by the hydroscope and the 
raising apparatus has been the bringing 
to the surface of an old Spanish galleon, 
one of a numerous fleet sunk in the Bay 
of Vigo in 1702 and recently brought to 
the surface by the aid of Pino’s inven¬ 
tion. In addition to this attempt on the 
old galleon some successful experiments 
were made with raising heavy boilers 
which had been sunk in the sea for ten 
years. 

FULTON’S SYLPHON MOTOR. 

A machine so sensitive to changes of 
temperature that it is able to generate 
power from the changes alone has been 
perfected after many efforts. The in¬ 
ventor is Professor Weston M. Fulton 
of the University of Tennessee. No mat¬ 
ter how minute may be the change in tem¬ 
perature the machine is affected and 
power is generated and exerted or stored 
up, to be drawn upon as desired. 

Professor Fulton has called his ma¬ 
chine the Sylphon. It consists of an ex¬ 
pansible and collapsible vessel. The wall 
is of thin sheet metal and the deep cor¬ 
rugations in it render it flexible, so that 
it may be drawn out or collapsed in a 
manner somewhat similar to the bellows 
of a camera. The end walls are thick 
and nonpliable. The vessel is generally 
made of steel, although brass and copper 
are useful in many instances. Simple as 
the apparatus may seem, it required years 
of costly experiment to reduce it to the 







The hydroscope in the water. At the bottom are the lenses arranged round the steel tube, 


























BOOK OB THE TIMES 


164 

efficient form in which it is now being in¬ 
troduced. 

FILM OF STEEL CORRUGATED. 

The process by which it is made re¬ 
quires seven distinct- steps, involving 
principles of electrical engineering, me¬ 
chanics and chemistry. By this process 
a cylindrical steel wall less than .005 of 
an inch in thickness can be corrugated 
and rendered so flexible that it can be 
expanded and collapsed thousands of 
times through a distance equal to its 
length without danger of rupture. Fur¬ 
thermore, this process makes it possible 
to construct this extremely thin steel wall 
free from soldered or brazed seams, so 
that it remains gas tight when drawn out 
or collapsed. 

Chemicals sensitive to change in tem¬ 
perature are introduced, after which the 
vessel is hermetically sealed. As the 
chemicals expand and contract under the 
influence of temperature changes the ves¬ 
sel is thereby caused to elongate and col¬ 
lapse. 

The kind of chemicals used in any 
case depends upon the special work which 
the device is intended to perform. The 
chemicals are partly liquid, but the active 
agents are gaseous. The superior value 
of gaseous bodies for heat-regulating and 
temperature-recording devices has long 
been recognized, but their use has been 
restricted because the expansible and col¬ 
lapsible chambers in which they were 
contained were made of rubber, leather or 
other materials which not only cause 
great loss of motion by yielding in all 
directions, but are really attacked by most 
gases and vapors and sooner or later de¬ 
stroyed by the chemical action. 


USED TO FERMENT YEAST. 

One illustration of the utility of the 
sylphon is found in a device which is used 
by the bakers in fermenting yeast. “Salt- 
rising" leaven requires a higher and 
more uniform temperature than hop 
yeast for its successful propagation, and 
for this reason artificial heat must be em¬ 
ployed. This new apparatus automati¬ 
cally controls the temperature inside the 
fermenter. 

Another illustration of the utility of 
the sylphon is where it serves as an auto¬ 
matic fire alarm and extinguisher. The 
sylphon under the influence of unusual 
heat acts on the circuit closer of an elec¬ 
tric fire alarm, and at the same time turns 
on water. 

The chemical used in this instance is a 
saturated vapor. The use of chemicals 
for this purpose permits of wide latitude 
in adjustment and it can be arranged to 
become active at almost any desired tern- 
perature. Hitherto it has been cus¬ 
tomary to employ a plug of fusible 
metal, which is introduced into the water 
pipes and which, when the temperature 
rises sufficiently, will melt and allow the 
water to escape. 

Experiments show that the device fur¬ 
nishes a practical solution to the problem 
of winding clocks. A timepiece equipped 
with this device stores power by means 
of a weight or spring. The clock then 
needs occasional regulation, but never 
winding. 

Professor Fulton, the inventor of the 
sylphon, is local forecaster in charge of 
the weather bureau offices and observa¬ 
tory at Knoxville, Tenn., and instructor 
of meteorology in the University of Ten- 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


16 !) 


nessee. He is also the inventor of an 
automatic river gauge, which has attract¬ 
ed considerable attention because of its 
ingenious features. This instrument has 
been adopted by the government for use 
at several observation stations. 

GREATEST TELESCOPES IN THE 
WORLD. 

The University of Chicago has an as¬ 
tronomical observatory near Williams 
Bay on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 
which is the largest telescope in the 
world. The aperture of the lens is forty 
inches. The two lenses used in this in¬ 
strument weigh 500 pounds and it re¬ 
quired four years to complete the proc¬ 
ess of polishing them. The tube is 
sixty-five feet long and weighs twenty 
tons. The dome under which this is op¬ 
erated is ninety feet in diameter. Its great 
sections are moved with the touch of a 
finger by electric motors. The huge in¬ 
strument and even the floor upon which 
it rests may be moved to adjust the tele¬ 
scope to any observation desired upon the 
heavens. 

Accompanying this observatory is an 
immense photographic instrument com 
sisting of a thirty-inch mirror mounted 
upon a horizontal telescope for the pur¬ 
pose of taking pictures of stars, nebulae 
and constellations. This astronomical 
machine is 165 feet long. The moon 
through this has a reflecting measure¬ 
ment of nineteen inches in diameter. 

GREATEST MICROSCOPE IN THE 
WORLD. 

The most powerful microscope in the 
world has recently been manufactured in 
Germany. 

With it a man can go 100 times nearer 


the infinitely little than he has ever gone 
before. He can now probe the recesses 
of nature to a point which scientists have 
said was impossible. For years mathe¬ 
maticians have claimed that the present 
microscope could not be improved so far 
as showing little things is concerned, yet 
here come two German scientists with 
an instrument that proves mathematics 
an utterly unsafe ground on which to 
prophesy. 

With the new microscope the atom be¬ 
comes visible. Solutions that seemed ab¬ 
solutely clear to the highest-power in¬ 
strument that had previously been trained 
upon them, now show galaxies of shining 
points comparable only to stars. Twist¬ 
ing and turning in the field of this micro¬ 
scope and shining with an ever-changing 
light, these particles have been admitted 
by every chemist who has seen them to 
be the fundamental forms in which the 
metals exist. 

This microscope marks an advance sec¬ 
ond in importance to none of those which 
made the twentieth century famous for 
far-reaching delvings into natural phe¬ 
nomena. Now it is only a matter of eyes. 
The man who is best equipped by nature 
can see the most in this instrument, which 
stands at the very apex of optical per¬ 
fection. 

WONDERS OF THE INFINITESI¬ 
MAL WORLD. 

As a test of its profound powers, a 
solution of colloid gold was placed in a 
small cell with sides of finest rock crystal, 
through which a beam of light was 
passed. Then for the first time the true 
power of the new microscope became 
manifest. No dead and inert particles of 





160 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


gold were seen, but a living, moving 
complex, glittering with light, ranging 
from the softest pink of Kunzite to the 
red and angry gleam of Mars, passed 
through the field. It did not move in a 
straight line, which would have given rise 
to the assumption that it was carried past 
the observer’s eye by currents in the so¬ 
lution, but it took a beautiful spiral way, 
each separate entity pursuing a similar 
path, glittering and scintillating with 
light as the angles of this “molecular 
complex” caught and reflected the beam 
that made it visible. The form of the 
particles has not been definitely settled, 
but may be later deduced from the path 
and the points of light. 

When silver or vanadium in colloid 
state was substituted for gold the path of 
these two elements was found to be ut¬ 
terly unlike that of the gold or of each 
other. The light with which they 
gleamed was also different, the silver 
showing blue rays where the gold showed 
pinks and reds. The silver solution is ab¬ 
solutely limpid to the unaided eye, while 
the gold and vanadium show faint traces 
of the colors which they exhibit under the 
microscope. 

With this microscope, these metals, 
which are commonly considered as abso¬ 


lutely inert and devoid of all life are 
shown to be as truly living as the bac¬ 
terium or any of the forms of animate 
matter in the ascending scale terminated 
by man. 

With this new microscope far-reach¬ 
ing discoveries in germs are looked for. 
As it is now, the mode of examining bac¬ 
teria is limited to “dead ones,” which are 
made visible by staining them with ani¬ 
line dyes. No staining is necessary with 
the new microscope, which reveals their 
inner structure in every smallest detail. 
The discoveries in this field of bacteriol¬ 
ogy may be of incalculable benefit to man 
by enabling him to better understand the 
conditions under which these enemies of 
his body have their being. 

Taken as an instrument of research 
into all forms of infinitely little matter, 
whether of interest to the delver in the 
pure fields of science, where the discov¬ 
ery of the ultimate smallest particle is the 
goal, or in the applied science of medi¬ 
cine, it is predicted that no invention of 
the twentieth century’s first decade may 
have more lasting impetus in the decades 
to come than this of Zsigmondy and 
Siedentopf, two scientific workers of the 
German host. 


GREATEST ELEVATOR LIFT IN THE WORLD. 


An elevator that will lift ships over a 
hill is an engineering wonder which has 
just been completed at Peterborough, 
Ont., as an aid to Canadian commerce. It 
is believed by many that it will give a 
new impetus to the projected plan of run¬ 
ning a canal for Georgian bay straight 
through the heart of most productive 


Canada to Lake Ontario, thus making a 
short cut, which saves 250 miles, and 
which will incidentally rob Detroit of a 
large percentage of the shipping which 
now passes the city. 

The complete success of this gigantic 
lift-lock, which is practically a huge ele¬ 
vator for lifting and lowering heavily 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


167 


laden ships at a small expense from one 
waterway to another, adds a new import¬ 
ance to the Trent valley waterway, which 
owns this only elevator for ships on the 
American continent. By means of this 
new lock a barge or steamer can he lifted 
or lowered a distance of sixtv-six feet 


under contemplation by the Canadian 
government. But while the distance from 
the hay to the lake, as the crow flies, is 
only seventy-five miles, in the narrowest 
part, and 200 miles by way of Peter¬ 
borough and the Trent canal, many ob¬ 
stacles have faced the scheme. 



Wonders of bridge construction. The Williamsburg or New East River bridge of New 

York City. View during the finishing work. 


in one and a half minutes, while with the 
old style of lock, like those at Sault Ste. 
Marie, several hours are consumed in do¬ 
ing the same work. 

For many years a canal from Georgian 
bay to Lake Ontario, through which ships 
might pass with western grain, has been 


IS GREAT OBSTACLE. 

Midway between Georgian bay and 
Lake Ontario the country is 600 feet 
above the level of the lake. To surmount 
this many of the old-style locks would 
have to be established at a stupendous 
cost, for with the ordinary lock a lift of 






























BOOK OF THE TIMES 


1 OS 


only twelve or fifteen feet can be secured. 
For the time abandoning the idea of car¬ 
rying the Trent Valley canal through., 
the Canadian government turned its at¬ 
tention to another and much longer route. 
This contemplated canal route extended 
up the French river to Lake Nipissing, 
from there to the Ottawa river and down 
the Ottawa to the St. Lawrence. But 
this proposition also meant an immense 
expenditure of money, for the Canadian 
rivers, especially those with as swift cur¬ 
rents as the Ottawa, afford at the best 
a dangerous waterway for ships. 

For these reasons, many believe, the 
successful completion of the great lift- 
lock at Peterborough opens up new pos¬ 
sibilities for the proposed canal across 
Ontario. From Peterborough almost to 
Lake Simcoe a series of a dozen or more 
lakes, together with short canals, have 
already opened up a rich tract of farm¬ 
ing country, so that more than half of the 
proposed route is now navigable, while 
only four or five miles of canal is neces¬ 
sary to join Lake Simcoe with the wa¬ 
terway, when Georgian bay may he 
reached by means of the Severn river. 
Of the distance that remains, however, 
about twenty miles will have to be canals 
and in these there necessarily will be 
tremendous lifts for ships. 

LOSS OF TIME SLIGHT. 

With the ship elevators wherever locks 
were necessary no great amount of time 
would be lost in changing vessels from 
one waterway to another. In fact, as it 
takes only about twelve minutes for the 
complete change of a vessel at Peter¬ 
borough, five separate locks would mean 
a loss of only about one hour. If vessels 


passed through the canal at a speed of six 
miles an hour it would take them in the 
neighborhood of thirty-five hours to make 
the trip to Lake Ontario. 

On the other hand, it would take ves¬ 
sels sailing down by the old route, at a 
speed of ten miles an hour, fifty-five 
hours to get to the same point—that is, if 
they were not compelled to lose time in 
passing through the Welland canal, which 
joins Lake Erie with Lake Ontario. But 
at this point they do lose time, and a 
great deal of it. If the canal is clear, a 
boat may pass through this distance of 
twenty-six miles in twelve hours, so that 
in reality it takes a ship traveling at the 
rate of ten miles an hour in open water, 
just sixty-seven hours to cover a course 
that would he shortened to thirty-five 
hours by means of the proposed Ontario 
canal—a saving of thirty-two hours. 

This Peterborough lift-lock is to the 
ship captain and his charge just what the 
elevator is to people in ordinary busi¬ 
ness life. Heretofore ships have practic¬ 
ally climbed up and down stairs, as in 
the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. For in¬ 
stance, a ship enters a lock or basin. This 
basin is then filled with water, and the 
raising of the surface of the water lifts 
the ship until the lock gate can he opened, 
and the vessel can travel into the next 
lock. During half an hour or more a 
ship can be lifted about twelve feet in 
this way. 

WHAT INVENTION IS LIKE. 

But in the case of Peterborough ship 
elevator the vessel runs into a filled basin, 
the gates are closed, and in one and a 
half minutes the ship has been elevated 
or lowered a distance of sixty-six feet. 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


160 


The wonderful engineering invention that 
performs this task is like a gigantic 
scales and an elevator combined. The 
first thing that strikes on£ when he looks 
upon it is its resemblance to a huge steel 
yard. The elevators, or pans, into which 
the ship runs, are two great steel boxes, 
each one capable of holding a vessel 150 
feet long and thirty-eight feet wide. 
Each of these pans is supported by a huge 
steel arm, or piston five feet in diameter. 
Now, imagining both pans filled with wa¬ 
ter, they would absolutely balance be¬ 
tween the massive cement towers which 
act as the framework of the scales. But 
they are not wanted to balance, so a little 
hydraulic pressure forces up one of the 
piston arms, and one of the tanks is held 
at the upper canal, while the other is at 
the lower canal, sixty-six feet below. 

Now along comes a ship. This vessel, 
it may be, is to be lifted instead of low¬ 
ered. From the lower canal it glides into 
the big tank, and the gates are closed be¬ 
hind it. Then the lockmaster, who 
watches everything from one of the ce¬ 
ment towers, ‘‘rings to the elevator boy. 
This assistant, nearly 100 feet below, 
touches a lever. 

HOW VESSEL IS RAISED. 

Immediately the weight of the water- 
filled tank at the upper canal tends to pull 
up the vessel in the other pan of the scale. 
But, of course, its weight is not sufficient, 
inasmuch as there is the added weight of 
the ship in the other side. So hydraulic 
pressure is brought to bear against the 
piston of * the ship-laden tank—a force 
pushing up, while the water-filled tank 
above acts as a weight coming down. In 
about one and a half minutes the vessel 


is on a level with the upper canal when 
the water-tight gates of both canal and 
lock are opened. 

As the big steel cup which has brought 
up the ship is already filled with water, 
there is no rushing of a torrent into it 
when the gates are opened, and the vessel 
glides quietly out and on her way. If all 
has gone well, no more than twelve min¬ 
utes have elapsed during the change of 
waterways. When a vessel is lowered, 
practically the same work is done over 
again, only in this instance the hydraulic 
pressure is added to the side that is com¬ 
ing down, so that the ship will not fall 
too rapidly. 

The entire working of the gigantic 
mechanism is absolutely noiseless, and the 
sight of a large ship being raised or low¬ 
ered a distance of more than sixty feet, 
without jar, tremor, or grating, is almost 
awesome. Each day now. hundreds of 
people are flocking to see the famous in¬ 
vention at work. 

Even if the huge ship-elevator is not 
seen at work, it is worth one’s visit to 
look upon the world’s largest mass of con¬ 
crete. The side towers are 114 feet high, 
and a public roadway passes through the 
huge base that supports the canal above, 
and in which are more than 25,000 yards 
of concrete. 

A RADIUM CLOCK THAT WILL 
RUN FOR THIRTY THOU¬ 
SAND YEARS. 

A radium clock, which will keep time 
indefinitely, has been constructed by Har¬ 
rison Martindale, of England. The prin¬ 
ciple of this apparatus is simplicity itself, 
the registration of time being made in 
two-minute beats, while its function is to 




170 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


exhibit the dissipation of negatively 
charged alpha beta rays of radium. 

The clock, according to the Scientific 
American, comprises a small tube in 
which is placed a minute quantity of 
radium supported in an exhausted glass 
vessel by a quartz rod. 

To the lower end of this wonderful 
little tube, which is colored violet by the 
action of the radium, an electroscope 
formed of two long leaves or strips of 
silver is attached. A charge of electricity 
in which there are no beta rays is trans¬ 
mitted through the activity of the radium 
into the leaves, and the latter thereby ex¬ 
pand until they touch the sides of the ves¬ 
sel, connected to earth by wires, which 
instantly conduct the electric charge, and 
the leaves fall together. 

This very simple operation is repeated 
incessantly every two minutes until the 
radium is exhausted, which in this in¬ 
stance it is computed will occupy thirty 
thousand years, 

THE WIRELESS TELEPHONE. 

Professor Marjoram, inventor of the 
wireless telephone, describes its work. 

I am asked to explain in “popular” lan¬ 
guage my wireless telephone, by which 
messages have been sent between points 
seventeen miles apart. To give an idea 
of the basis of my invention, let me refer 
to the wireless telegraph. It is known 
that with the Marconi system when a 
spark is discharged at the transmitting 
station there are heard in the detector 
sounds corresponding to each spark dis¬ 
charge. The detector, as is known, was 
invented by Marconi for this purpose, the 
telegrapher listening to the sound of the 
sparks being able to decipher the tele¬ 


gram. Ordinarily the number of sparks 
that are discharged by the Marconi ap¬ 
paratus is not more than ten per second 
at a maximum. 

This limit is sufficient for the purposes 
of telegraphic transmission, but it was 
necessary for my purpose to obtain a 
great increase over this. With this in 
view I commenced by enormously in¬ 
creasing this number, and I soon suc¬ 
ceeded in discharging as many as 10,000 
a second, each discharge being much 
weaker than that adopted in telegraphy. 
This being the case, whoever is present 
at the detector hears nothing, since the 
sparks succeed each other with extreme 
rapidity and are all of equal intensity. 

If, however, by means of some ar¬ 
rangement the intensity of the sparks is 
changed, and if these variations are 
caused by and correspond to the vibra¬ 
tions of the living voice of a person who 
is speaking, the words will be faithfully 
reproduced at the detector. The question 
thus is to modulate the series of sparks, 
making them now shorter, now longer, 
under the action of the words. I have 
conceived many devices for this purpose, 
and at present am working on a special 
microphone which I hope soon to intro¬ 
duce to the public. 

If the invention should prove of prac¬ 
tical use, there is no reason why it should 
not supersede the wireless telegraph, in 
many instances, especially when the dis¬ 
tance is not over seventy-five miles. It 
is not permitted at present to speak of 
greater distances, but one would have the 
advantage of obtaining a rapidity of 
transmission ten times greater than with 
the wireless telegraph, the human words 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


171 


developing much more rapidly than the 
telegraphic sign. 

TYPESETTING BY MACHINES. 

Typesetting was, until twenty years 
ago, an occupation of tedious labor that 
required every detail in composition to be 
performed by hand. Not only was the 
composition done by hand work, but the 
distribution of the individual types back 
into their respective cases by hand was 



Fig. i. The linotype. 


an associated function in every printing 
office. Machines for setting type have 
now reached that stage of perfection 
where the old, hand-setting method will 
be in a very short time entirely eliminated 
from even the smallest printing offices. 
The advantages of typesetting by machin¬ 
ery are so numerous that a comparison 
between the two methods is hardly pos¬ 
sible. The principal features that recom¬ 
mend the machine are: that it can dupli¬ 
cate the work of eight men in the same 
amount of time; that it requires no dis- 



Flg. 2. 

A line of linotype matrices showing spacers 


tribution after printing, as the machine 
type or slugs are melted over again; that 
clear impressions are obtained, as the type 
is always new. 

THE MONOTYPE. 



Wonders of the typesetting machine. 


The Monotype is a book and job type- 
making and composing machine. 



























































































172 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Working automatically it casts and fin¬ 
ishes foundry type, sets, justifies, and de¬ 
livers it on the galley ready for proving. 

It passes with ease from straight com¬ 
position, to tabular and other intricate 
work. 

It carries at one time five alphabets 
(225 characters), upper and lower case, 

KILLING 

The whaling industry is only about six 
years old, as an “industry” ; a most lucra¬ 
tive one it is now. Whales are now killed 
by steam, the steamer carrying a gun, 
which projects a huge barb and line, 
where before the harpoon was used. 
Thirty steamers are now engaged in the 
business, and a thousand whales annually 
will shortly be the annual kill, we are in¬ 
formed. The whale’s carcass, towed 
placidly into port, is turned over to a 
dual factory system—oil-makers and fer¬ 
tilizer makers. Every oil-bearing por¬ 
tion of the body is boiled till it yields the 
last drop; then the residue of waste, to¬ 
gether with the non-oil-bearing portions, 
is conveyed to the fertilizer makers. The 
latter’s product, it will be news to many 
of us, is chiefly shipped to the Southern 
States, the bone phosphates being highly 
valuable for enriching farm lands. 

HOW WHALES ARE HANDLED. 

In this realm of machinery we marvel 
at the crude methods employed in hand¬ 
ling the whale carcass. A giant crane is 
almost the only machine aid used. The 
blubber is removed from the exterior of 
the carcass with hand knives. The ma¬ 
terial is carried from one place to an¬ 
other, from one “factory” to another, in 


Roman and italic, small caps, figures, and 
punctuation marks for each, accents, 
diphthongs, as well as all the signs in 
general use. 

With it every job is set in freshly 
cast, individual types—which ecpial in 
quality the very best output of the lead¬ 
ing foundries. 

WHALES. 

wheelbarrows. Immediately the sugges¬ 
tion occurs to us that a track and cars 
would be easier and cheaper, or that a 
pulley device would increase economy. 

The “whale” in the natural history ex¬ 
hibit of the Government Museum at 
Washington is the result of the energies 
of the Museum Commission. In 1903 
the museum sent a party of scientists to 
the Newfoundland whale factory to se¬ 
cure a complete plaster mold of one of 
the monster sea mammals. A bull sev¬ 
enty-eight feet long was taken, from 
which the papier-mache model was made. 
After the flesh had been removed from 
the carcass the scientists purchased the 
skeleton, which is exhibited beside the 
cast. Pieces of the skin, preserved in 
formalin, so as to reproduce the mark¬ 
ings and colorations of the body, are 
used. The cost of this single exhibit is 
said to be about $7,000. 

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE 
WHALE. 

To the few who are naturalists the 
whale has additional abundant interest. 
Those of us who are not, being in the 
vast majority, may learn that the bulkv 
monsters of the deep are not fish, but are 
“animals.” mammals, related to hoofed 






TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


178 


creatures which, in remote ages, adopted 
aquatic life, first in fresh water, then in 
salt. The conditions under which they 
lived during these countless aeons are, so 
the scientists tell us, responsible for their 

COLOSSAL 

A great engine and its generator stand¬ 
ing under a seventy-foot roof, do not al¬ 
ways appear to their full advantage. It 
is when one sits down and watches the 
twenty-five foot flywheel move almost 
silently, making seventy-five revolutions 
a minute, that one begins to appreciate 
the immensity of the machine and under¬ 
stand that the indicated horsepower prob¬ 
ably is real. Its possible capacity, worked 
at full speed and under full pressure, is 
8,000 horsepower. 

The engine of the Manhattan type is 
named after those which produce the cur¬ 
rent for the electric trains on the elevated 
railroad at New York. 

BEWILDERING DIMENSIONS. 

Some of the dimensions of the giant 
Manhattan machine when set down on 
paper give a better idea of its immensity. 
The flywheel alone weighs 300,000 
pounds, the rim having a face of 30 
inches and depth of 33 inches. At ordi¬ 
nary speed the rim travels considerably 
more than a mile a minute, and does this 
day and night. The shaft weighs 30^ 
tons and the crank 16 tons. The engine 
stands exactly 39 feet 2 inches above the 
floor. The entire engine weighs 1,440,- 
000 pounds and the revolving parts, in¬ 
cluding the generator, 514,000 pounds. 
The stator yoke of the generator, which 
is 27 feet in diameter, 33 feet over all, 
weighs 58,000 pounds. The stroke of 


fish-like form, which is not a mark of re¬ 
lationship to the “finny tribe,” the whale’s 
fins being only remnants of feet. Whales, 
by the way, suckle their young as cows 
do calves. 

ENGINES. 

the giant piston rods is 5 feet. The high 
pressure cylinder is 44 inches in diameter 
and the low pressure cylinder is 7 feet 10 
inches in diameter. 

THE MAGICAL BUTTON. 

On one side of this little cage—the at¬ 
tendant calls it a rheostat—is an arm 
which is turned by a tiny electric motor. 
Its business is to cut out the resistance of 
the rheostat and let the current flow 
through the wires. 

Near by is a diminutive turbine engine 
that attracts much attention. The tur¬ 
bine is something new. This particular 
one is of the newest make. It is 500 
horsepower, but does not begin to look 
it. The engine occupies about the space 
that a grand piano requires—a little 
longer and not nearly so wide. The 
shaft is attached directly to an electric 
generator. The speed, 3,600 revolutions 
a minute, is beyond ordinary comprehen¬ 
sion. There is no vibration and little 
sound save a low, tense, insistent hum. 
The engine has been running at the same 
speed for nearly a year. 

There is another great machine known 
as the welded steel “digester,” used in 
the manufacture of paper. It is 9 feet 
in diameter and its total length is 42 feet 
6 inches. It weighs 41,300 pounds. 

There is a planing machine which 
smooths down a piece of iron or steel 
eight feet wide and twenty feet long as 



m 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


if it were so much white pine. Near by 
is a gigantic “guillotine” shears, made 
to cut boiler plate up to a quarter inch 
in thickness. It cuts with as much ease- 
as a tinsmith would cut the thinnest 
sheet iron, the trimmed off narrow strips 
of metal becoming smoking hot with the 
process and curling amazingly. 

FOR BORING STEEL. 

There is a boring machine capable of 
boring in steel a hole any size from a 
quarter of an inch up to seven feet. Its 
planer is ten feet wide, and a five-thou¬ 
sand-pound steam hammer is part of the 
equipment. The entire machine weighs 
385,000 pounds. 

It is refreshing, after seeing engines 
and other “largest in the world” ma¬ 
chines, to turn to the little things. Pos- 
'sibly one of the most interesting is an 
atomatic pinion cutter. From the end 
of a tempered steel wire the machine 
cuts away about a quarter of . an inch, 
after having polished and shaped it to 
some extent. Then the gearing is cut 
with mathematical precision, a stream of 
oil all the while helping to keep it cool. 
At the end of a minute and a half of 
ruminative work the machine stolidly 
drops the highly finished pinion in the 
stream of oil, and, without further pre¬ 
liminary. attacks the end of the steel wire 
again. The machine is capable, it is de¬ 
clared, of running all the time. It covers 
less than a square foot of space and is 
barely ten inches high, hardly as large as 
an ordinary typewriter, but is held at 

$1,500- 

One clever inventor has found a real 
use for hot air. This man makes super¬ 
heated atmosphere do all sorts of light 


work, but especially applies his invention 
to lifting water from wells and springs. 
There is no boiler, none of the usual re¬ 
quirements of an engine except fire, and 
that may be supplied by anything com¬ 
bustible, from natural gas to pine knots. 
The fire once started, the engine is soon 
going, and there is no stopping it un¬ 
less something breaks or the fire goes 
out. 

MACHINE FOR MAGNIFYING 
TIME. 

“A machine for magnifying time” is 
the misleading name given to a new elec¬ 
trical invention which makes it possible 
to observe rapidly moving wheels and 
other parts of machines more clearly. By 
its means one may watch the stitch of a 
sewing machine and see exactly how it is 
made, or observe the flying spokes of a 
bicycle wheel, which, to the naked eye, 
would appear but a filmy spider’s web, 
and note exactly the vibrations and 
strains. The machine that produces this 
result is simple once the principle is 
clearly understood. By means of electric 
sparks fired at rapid intervals the machine 
is illuminated. If the flashes coincide 
exactly with the revolutions of the ma¬ 
chine they will show it always in one 
position, and the machine will seem at 
rest. By slightly retarding the flashes 
so that they lag behind their time the ma¬ 
chine under observation will seem to 
move slowly. This is because at each 
revolution the machine is shown at a 
slightly later stage. The machine is 
called the stroboscope, and will prove of 
great use in studying the effects of rapid 
motion. 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


175 


HOW SHOES ARE MADE. 


Few realize that 170 separate and dis¬ 
tinct steps are required for the manufac¬ 
ture of our footwear, or that seventy dif¬ 
ferent machines, many of them marvels 
of ingenuity, are used in the process. 
Fewer realize that the seventy machines 


But the shoeman is so busy with his 
shoes that it all becomes ordinary to him. 
and the newspaper worker sees his busi¬ 
ness in the same way, and all other work¬ 
ers look at their particular work the same 
way. So, if we would see genuine up- 



The Baldwin airship prepared for flight. 


can be manipulated by skillful shoework- 
ers so rapidly that the 170 stages are 
passed through in twenty minutes. From 
raw leather to a first-class or “welt” shoe 
in twenty minutes! 

The “miracles” performed in the shoe 
business are not a whit more wonderful 
than the daily round in any other great 
industrial business—the making of the 
newspaper, for instance. 


to-date miracles performed, we but have 
to lift our noses from our own grind¬ 
stone and do the often odious thing of 
poking them into the other fellow’s busi¬ 
ness. 

In passing from stage to stage, a shoe 
rests for a time upon racks between proc¬ 
esses because after the several wettings 
of the leather it is desirable to allow it to 
dry. Thirty days is the average for a 






















170 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


shoe to remain in factory. But the raw- 
leather is being cut continually at the ex¬ 
hibit and far at the other end of the line, 
shoes are being turned out constantly in 
working hours, the rate being 300 a day. 

The changes have no effect upon the 
“story of the shoe,” as told by the ex¬ 
hibit ; the details of the manufacture are 
the same in any case. An entire recital 
of the 170 specific incidents in the history 
of a shoe would involve many details only 
confusing to one who is not a “shoe 
man.” 

THE PROCESS OF MAKING SHOES. 

These are the essential steps : 

The cutter cuts the leather, following 
patterns, of which he has quite a num¬ 
ber, fitted to styles and sizes. He stands 
at a board much as a tailor, but does 
nothing all day long save slice out the 
various pieces of shoes. 

After the cutting comes the stitching, 
which is simply the sewing necessary to 
the making of the “upper.” The work 
usually is done by girls, who sit at sew¬ 
ing machines of peculiar construction and 
who, if skillful, work with surprising- 
rapidity. 

The “upper,” fresh from “stitching,” 
goes to the “making-room,” where the 
“eyelets”—holes for the laces—are put 
in. Then the “upper” is drawn over a 
“last” and the “insole” is put on. Special 
men are assigned to the cutting of these 
insoles, and a supply is always in readi¬ 
ness. 

Then, followdng the career of a shoe, 
we are taken to the'“pulling-over ma¬ 
chine,” a device that draws the upper 
firmly down over the last. Next is the 
“niggerhead lasting machine,” which 


finishes the work of the “pulling-over 
machine,” seizing the lower edges of the 
upper, binding them more securely to the 
last and tacking them to the insole. 

Now we are introduced to the “in- 
seamer,” which in some mysterious way 
gouges around the outer edge of the in¬ 
sole, creating a protruding flap of leather 
that at the same time is sewn to the 
“welt.” This welt is wdiat appears as the 
upper facing of a spread-sole shoe, but it 
is not a thickness of sole, merely a thin 
strip of leather around the outer edge of 
the sole, which fixes the upper firmly to 
the insole. 

Then the “shank,” a strip of steel at 
the instep, is put in by hand; the edges 
of “welt” and “upper” are trimmed, and 
the bottom of the shoe rendered even by 
a filling of cork and glue. The shoe is 
ready for the outer sole, which will have 
been “channeled” much as the inseamer 
channels the insole. A stitching machine 
which sews hot, waxed thread with inter¬ 
locking stitch, attaches the outer sole by 
sewing through the welt. By using the 
heated wax, the thread when cool be¬ 
comes as if a part of the leather, and, 
though wear may destroy the lower loops 
of the stitches, the outer sole is not de¬ 
tached. 

Even at this point, your shoe is not 
complete. The sole must be “leveled” to 
the form of the last; all the processes of 
’“heeling” are yet to come; and there are 
'many necessary steps such as “trim¬ 
ming,” “polishing,” “stamping,” etc. 

INGENUITY OF THE MACHINES. 

Almost any one of the machines repre¬ 
sents the mechanical endeavor and prog¬ 
ress of one, two or three .generations. 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


177 


They are remarkable at once for their 
ugliness, their seeming complexity, and 
the rapidity and accuracy with which each 
performs its task. The one with the ex¬ 
traordinary name, the “niggerhead last¬ 
ing machine,” perhaps is the most inter¬ 
esting of all. 

It came to possess that striking title in 
the parlance of shoe workers because of 
its inventor, who was a South African 
mulatto. Like many an original mechanic, 
he became convinced that machinery 
could be made to do what many better 
educated, or scientific men deemed impos¬ 
sible. Then when it appeared that after 
all something was in his claims, efforts 
were made to steal his invention. At that 


time, it is said, the first “niggerhead last¬ 
ing machine” lay concealed for three 
years in a haystack. 

Let that be as it may, improved and 
to an extent simplified, the machine now- 
does the work of four men. Its essential 
parts are contained within an eighteen- 
inch thickness, a space of a shape re¬ 
sembling a human head. Peculiar nip¬ 
pers slip down and grip the “upper,” draw 
it tightly over the last, and then a needle, 
worked from somewhere in the depths of 
the mechanism, stitches around the cir¬ 
cumference of the insole so rapidly that 
the eye utterly fails to follow its in-and- 
out movement. 


DESERTS BLOSSOMING AS THE ROSE. 


GOVERNMENT ENGINEERS CRE¬ 
ATING GARDENS IN THE 
ARID SOUTHWEST. 

It is a wonderful transformation that 
will be made in the far southwest if the 
plans of the United States geological sur¬ 
vey with regard to irrigation are carried 
out. Ever since the passage of the new 
irrigation act the survey’s engineers have 
gone throughout this part of the country, 
making surveys and reconnoitering the 
rivers and possible dam sites for storage 
reservoirs. These men have just left for 
the northwest to return to this arid des¬ 
ert in the fall, says the Phoenix corre¬ 
spondent of the Boston Transcript. 

Millions of acres in southern Arizona 
alone will be reclaimed and reduced to 
wonderful fertility if their plans are car¬ 
ried through and their success seems 
sure. A single project in this territory 
calls for the irrigation of 400,000 acres. 


while there are several amounting to 
more than 100,000 acres each. Not very 
much, the biggest # of them, compared 
with the immense areas that now lie 
under the scorching and burning sun, but 
capable of supporting a vast population. 
Irrigable lands in the southwest are not 
like farming districts elsewhere. A few 
acres can be so intensely cultivated that 
they will yield a greater return than ten 
times as many elsewhere, and with less 
risk of loss from a capricious climate. 
On these lands seven crops of alfalfa hay 
can be gathered in a single year, with 
other yields proportionately as great. 
These lands are very rich. They will 
grow almost anything except corn, which 
does not adapt itself readily to irrigation 
and the baking soils. 

WATER FROM THE COLORADO 

Tbe largest project in this region is 
that of the southern Colorado, north of 




i 76 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Yuma, where engineers have been work¬ 
ing until recently. The Colorado is a 
great river, with abundant water all the 
year through, and after it passes its deep 
canyons it flows through a region where 
the water can be easily guided over the 
plains. It is expected that within four 
or five years the lower Colorado will wa¬ 
ter not much less than half a million 
acres that now he worthless under the 
hottest sky in the United States. Most 
of this land is not like the average Ameri¬ 
can desert—that is, a plain covered dur¬ 
ing the springtime with flowers and at all 
seasons with sagebrush, greasewood and 
kindred vegetation—but is as bare as the 
lands of Egypt above the reach of the 
Nile, and there are no such tenantless 
deserts in the world as those. But half 
a million acres of the lower Colorado, 
once watered, will support in comfort 
and even in abundance, more than 10,000 
families. Estimates of the cost of this 
work have not been completed, but it is 
not expected that the cost of this land 
with perpetual water’rights will be nearly 
as great as that of breaking and subduing 
a similar tract in the forest states of the 
central west, say Minnesota or Wiscon¬ 
sin, while the crops will be far greater 
and their value many times as high. 

PROJECTS UNDER WAY. 

A little distance west of the Colorado, 
in southern California, one water com¬ 
pany has been irrigating by means of an 
immense dam for some years and is 
growing rich from its income from farms 
under its water privilege. The govern¬ 
ment is investigating this Elcajon valley 
with a view to increasing the improve¬ 
ment and adding vastly to the reclaimed 


lands. As under the national projects 
the lands will return no continuous in¬ 
come of great profit, the private company 
now located there is fighting the project 
with all the means at its command, but is 
scarcely likely to succeed in blocking an 
improvement that means millions for the 
region and for the little city of San 
Diego. 

On the San Pedro river, in southwest¬ 
ern Arizona, the government engineers 
have been at work for a year and have 
completed the survey of a project of the 
utmost importance. This will irrigate 
more than 300,000 acres now useless. 
The wonderful fertility of this soil has 
been shown by the numerous little 
ranches that have been established along 
the river and that supply many of the 
mining camps of southern Arizona with 
their vegetables, fruit, forage and milk. 
But these individual efforts are neces¬ 
sarily of small consequence and the area 
that they can cover is very restricted. 
With this project completed the score of 
little toy ranches that now dot the San 
Pedro valley above Tombstone will be re¬ 
placed by a belt of fertile farms as wide 
as the valley itself and miles in length. 

INTRICATE ENGINEERING 
PROBLEM. 

This irrigation project combines with 
the erection of dams and the construc¬ 
tion of main and lateral canals an engi¬ 
neering problem of a more intricate and 
rather unusual nature. This is nothing 
less than the relocation of a main line 
standard gauge railway for thirty miles 
through the mountains and the recon¬ 
struction of that road for that distance 
in a substantial and permanent manner. 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


179 



Process of constructing the First National Bank building of Chicago. 






















180 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


This the government has undertaken to 
do, and it will turn over the new road to 
the El Paso & Southwestern system free 
from all debt and incumbrance, well bal¬ 
lasted, laid w T ith heavy rails, and com¬ 
plete in every detail, even to the erection 
of water tanks, station houses and sid¬ 
ings. This portion of the San Pedro 
project alone will cost about half a mil¬ 
lion dollars. The El Paso & Southwest¬ 
ern road belongs to that famous New 
York firm of western organizers and cop¬ 
per miners, Phelps, Dodge & Co., and 
was built by them a few years ago to 
serve their mines in the far southwest. It 
was built through the San Pedro valley, 
and its present track will be under water 
for thirty miles when the proposed dam is 
completed. 

TONTO BASIN DAM. 

Work is already well under way on the 
so-called Tonto basin dam, near Phoenix, 
on the Gila river, which is to irrigate 
about 250,000 acres and which is to cost 
more than $3,000,000. The government 
is erecting at the new boom town of 
Roosevelt immense cement-making 
works. Fortunately, a rock suitable for 
the making of concrete was discovered 
in the immediate region of the proposed 
dam, and it is estimated that by making 
its own concrete the government will 
save at least $4 a barrel on the scores of 
thousands of barrels to be used in the 
dam. Concrete firms in the central west, 
Kansas and elsewhere thought there was 
no opportunity for any competition and 
charged high prices, the railroads wanted 
as much more in freights, but the govern¬ 
ment cut the knot into which the entire 
project was being tied by the construction 
of its own works. 


This is the first actual construction un¬ 
der the national irrigation laws passed by 
the recent congress. As such it is of 
double interest and importance. The 
thorough manner in which the govern¬ 
ment undertakes its constructions of mag¬ 
nitude is well exemplified here. Already 
500 men are at work, all on preliminaries, 
for the dam has not yet started, nor has 
the canal which is to convey the water 
to be impounded. But there is a great 
concrete works and a large and powerful 
electric-light plant to furnish illumina¬ 
tion for night work, as the construction 
is to be continued day and night once it is 
begun. Then there are waterworks sys¬ 
tems, hospitals and the like, and a rail¬ 
road to connect the site with the Santa 
Fe road, wagon roads through the moun¬ 
tains and a great power canal that will 
furnish all power for the actual construc¬ 
tion of the works. 

GOVERNMENT SCHEMES. 

The government is at work all over 
the far west and is making plans for the 
development of millions on millions of 
acres that now are utterly worthless. 
In addition to the work in the southwest, 
in Arizona, New Mexico, California and 
western Kansas, the engineers are scat¬ 
tered over Idaho, Montana and Wash¬ 
ington, as well as in the interior states 
of Utah, Nevada and Wyoming. In 
Utah there is little opportunity, so well 
have the Mormons covered the hillsides 
with their irrigation ditches and the val¬ 
leys with their fields, laughing with fat 
crops. But in all the remaining region 
there are enormous possibilities; these are 
indeed so great that it is impossible to 
estimate what they may lead to. It is 
only the question of a sufficiency of water 




TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


181 


that will limit the activity of the geo¬ 
logical survey. One of the greatest of 
all projects yet considered is that of the 
Snake river in Idaho, and the Columbia 
will furnish a vast flood to make glad the 
deserts of central Washington. 

Under the act authorizing this work all 
proceeds of the sale of government lands 
are set aside for a fund for the improve¬ 
ment of such other government lands as 
surveys may show to be adapted to irriga¬ 
tion. So there is no direct charge upon 
the public. As soon as the irrigation pro¬ 


jects are carried through and the lands 
are ready for sale the government will 
sell them at a price that will pay for the 
original land and the improvement and 
will add enough to the cost to maintain 
a permanent supervision and repair fund, 
so that the buyer of government land un¬ 
der an irrigation ditch will pay only one 
cost and will have water forever. The 
plan is far-reaching in its effect and is so 
wise in its possibilities as to seem beyond 
the capabilities of any of the political 
leaders of today. 


TO POPULATE DESERTS. 


THE SALVATION ARMY’S VAST 
PROJECT—WHAT IT HAS 
DONE ALREADY. 

Officers of the Salvation Army, which 
is now holding its international congress 
in London, have evolved a stupendous 
plan of populating the arid regions of the 
West. They have a scheme to remove 
the pauperized classes from the great 
cities and make them farmers. They 
want the government to advance the 
money for a colonization scheme more 
ambitious than any which the great col¬ 
onizing countries of Europe have ever yet 
attempted. They had a bill introduced at 
the last Congress to carry out their 
scheme, and although the bill was killed 
and the plan called a chimera, they are 
now lining up to fight it through at the 
next session. 

The Salvationists have figured it all 
out. There is enough waste water in the 
United States, they say, to irrigate one- 
fifth of the arid lands, or 150,000,000 
acres, and of this vast territory, only one- 
fiftieth, or about 10,000,000 acres, have 


already been reclaimed. They estimate 
that the government can settle families 
on fifteen-acre tracts at the cost of $27.50 
an acre, and in the bill which they want 
passed Uncle Sam is to loan out $5,000,- 
000 a year to reclaim annually nearly 
200,000 acres. This would remove from 
the cities every year, they estimate, more 
than 10,000 families, or about 50,000 
souls. Such a project would not only 
pay for itself, its advocates say, but also 
net a rich income. The money is all to 
be paid back at 6 per cent interest. 

SUCCESS SO FAR ACHIEVED. 

Whenever the Salvation officers are 
called visionary in advocating such a plan 
they point to the three colonies which 
they have themselves established in Colo¬ 
rado, Ohio and California. These settle¬ 
ments, aggregating about five hundred 
men, women and children, have cost 
about $300,000, but their founders say 
that all except the youngest are now 
self-supporting. 

The oldest and largest colony and the 




182 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


one that best illustrates the settlement 
plan, which the army wants the govern¬ 
ment to undertake, is at Amity, Col., a 
few miles west of the Kansas line, on the 
Santa Fe Railroad. Here six years ago 
two thousand acres were purchased for 
$44,000, and at the present time one-half 
the land has been taken up, and the com¬ 
munity has grown to a population of 360. 



General view of the mechanism below the balloon 
of the Barton airship. 


Its people have prospered, according to 
Commander Booth-Tucker, who said re¬ 
cently that the freight alone on Fort 
Amity’s crops last year amounted to $50,- 
000, or $6,000 more than the original 
cost of the land. Of the $110,000 ex¬ 
pended on the colony for land, buildings 
and irrigation works, the colonists have 
paid back nearly one-fourth, or $27,000. 


As each family arrives at Fort Amity ; 
it is quartered by the commanding officer 
until its house is built and furnished. If 
the newcomer is “handy with the ham¬ 
mer" he builds his own house; if not, he 
hires the village carpenter. Besides the 
home, the settler obtains two horses, a 
cow, two dozen chickens, and all the tools 
needed for cultivating his twenty acres 
of land. He is also supplied with cash to 
buy the seed for his first crop, after which 
he is supposed to shift for himself. His 
chief crops are alfalfa, cantaloupe and 
sugar beet. By the time the first crop is 
harvested, however, he is in debt to the 
army for from $1,000 to $1,500. He 
has eleven years to pay back the sum, and 
inasmuch as the interest is accumulating 
right along at the rate of 6 per cent, he 
is stimulated to cancel his debt as soon as 
possible. Commander Booth-Tucker says 
that a few have already cleared themselves 
and adds: “Families who started two to 
five years ago with nothing now pos¬ 
sess farms worth from $2,000 to $5,000. 
The average cash income of the settlers 
is $800, and there is no disposition mani¬ 
fested on the part of any of them to 
abandon their farms and return to the 
city." 

GREAT VALUE OF IRRIGATION. 

The vital importance of the irrigation 
ditch is seen in every deed of property 
drawn up for reclaimed Western land. 
At Fort Amity each colonist is entitled 
to certain water rights, so that he can 
flood his land for each crop, at the cost 
of 20 cents a year for each acre. The 
entire Arkansas Valley, at the eastern end 
of which Fort Amity is situated, is sup¬ 
plied by a vast irrigation system, which 



















TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


183 


is the largest in the United States, con¬ 
sisting of five great reservoirs, with a 
capacity of 14,500.000,000 cubic feet, and 
seven canals, which all told are 315 miles 


long. This supply is sufficient to irrigate 
150,000 acres. The entire valley is 
made accessible to the markets of the 
East by means of the Santa Fe Railroad. 


INEXHAUSTIBLE FUEL. 


KEEPING WARM. 

Probably very few have ever consid¬ 
ered what a perpetual and all-important 
part heat plays in their lives. 

All of us have at some time or other 
known what it means to miss a train on 
an icy winter's day, and in consequence 
to hang about half-frozen without the pos¬ 
sibility of a warm up, internal or external; 
but it is a hundred chances to one that 
so soon as we dropped into an armchair 
before a cosy fire at home we gave no 
further thought, at any rate, to the scien¬ 
tific side of the matter. 

Keeping warm, however, is, one may 
safely assert, the most important of all 
matters in this universe. Neither man, 
beast, nor plant can exist without it. 

Nature has made the most elaborate 
arrangements for the keeping warm of 
this little globe of ours, and to this end 
the sun supplies us, year in, year out. with 
a total heat equal to that which would 
be created by the burning of 43,200,000,- 
000,000.000,000 tons of coal per hour. 
Our earth manages to catch a small part 
of this warmth. A trifle of heat which 
could be given by only 21.600,000.000 
tons an hour of coal is all we get the bene¬ 
fit of. No wonder we who are stout 
sometimes feel a little troubled with the 
heat during a scorching summer. 

Not only does the sun provide 11s with 
present light and heat, but in past ages 
its warmth encouraged a marvellously 


free growth of vegetation, which time 
has turned into coal, and which we are 
able nowadays to use to supplement the 
sun’s heat. 

Everyone knows that at certain periods 
of the year our side of the earth is so 
placed as to receive a smaller share of the 
gratuitous warmth showered so freely at 
other times by our common furnace, the 
sun. These changes have made all the 
races of mankind search out for them¬ 
selves artificial means of adding to what 
may be termed the universal free heat. 
How the different races set about achiev¬ 
ing this end forms quite an interesting 
subject. 

PRIMITIVE FIRE-MAKING. 

The aboriginal savages, whose habits 
and methods are fast being changed or 
falling into disuse with the ever-encroach¬ 
ing march of civilization, have the knack 
of creating fire with a couple of sticks 
and a piece of wood which, when all is 
said and done, is superior, if not so quick, 
as our box of vestas, for the latter are so 
often missing just when most wanted; 
but a stick and a piece of wood can be 
readily obtained almost anywhere. 

Following upon the causing of flame 
by friction of wood, man devised the flint 
and tinder method of striking a light, and 
this satisfied everyone right down till the 
time of the sulphur-headed match of com¬ 
paratively recent years. 




184 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


For keeping warm out of doors, man 
practically all the world over, and at all 
times, has followed one plan. The differ¬ 
ence between the savage’s sheep or lion 
or bearskin, and the magnate's fur coat, 
of dimensions prodigious on a scale pro- 


possibly he is right. At any rate, there 
are few European noses which can stand 
the odor the Arab causes in his endeavor 
to keep his tent or house warm by means 
of lighting a charcoal or damp wood fire 
right in the centre of his living room 



Airship from England. The airship here portrayed is the invention of Mr. L. J. Anderson. 
It was successfully tried at the Balloon Hall at Highbury. Its buoyancy is given by 
twin balloons, between which are the mechanism and propellers, of which there are 
three. 


portionate with his banking account, is 
only one of degree. The principle is the 
same. 

It is when we come to interior warm¬ 
ing that the differences of method become 
most striking and interesting. 

The Arab of the Syrian desert says 
that we Europeans have bad noses, and 


without any flue to carry away the smoke 
and fumes. The swarthy descendant of 
Shem and his family, however, enjoy it 
to the full. 

Amongst civilized peoples during the 
last hundred years a great deal of atten¬ 
tion has been paid to the question of heat¬ 
ing rooms, both large and small. Open 





















TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


185 


fires, closed stoves, elaborate hot-water 
pipes, hot-air pipes, gas-fires, gas-stoves, 
electric fires, have all been tried. 

The old English handsome open fire¬ 
place holds a dear place in all hearts, but 
we must perforce move with the times. 
Fancy an old English fireplace in a mod¬ 
ern flat! But we cannot, for would it not 
more than fill the biggest room in the 
whole menage? No, the old English fire¬ 
place for most of us must be a most in¬ 
teresting reminiscence of a picturesque 
past. 

ANTIQUATED METHODS. 

The Germans and Russians, until quite 
recent years, were behind us in most mat¬ 
ters of scientific home comforts, but their 
system of heating rooms by great orna¬ 
mental tiled stoves was far in advance, 
from an economic point of view, of our 
English fire-grates of the same period— 
say fifty or a hundred years ago. They 
burned less coal and gave out more heat. 
Whether they are equally ornamental 
must be left to each person’s own sense 
of the artistic. 

Just as the old English fireplace has 
had its day, so, too, the cumbersome Con¬ 
tinental stove, with its elaboration of 
artistic tilework, has perforce had to give 
place to the more practical, modern, com¬ 
pact gas-heater. 

During the past ten or twenty years the 
gas-stove has held sway all the world 
over. Its superiority over all the old 
forms of interior heating was undoubted, 
but its turn to give place to a more sci¬ 
entific, economical and every way better 
appliance has come. Doubtless electricity 
will be the main means of heat in the 

future. 


BRIQUETTES TO SUPERSEDE 
COAL. 

In 1903 and 1904, there were about 
forty fuel-patents, most of them on 
briquette processes, such as: 

“For making briquettes with binder 
obtained by boiling seaweed. 

“Compressed fuel made from peat, 
without any other binder. 

“Smokeless compressed fuel made from 
slack or fine coal, and a binder obtained 
from sago-yielding plants. 

“Briquettes made from comminuted 
<coal, coke, or other combustible, with 
molasses for binding material. 

“Fine coal with a binder of pitch which 
has been treated by carbonic acid. 

“Briquettes made from slack or culm 
mixed when heated with paraffin residu¬ 
um, borax, antimony, acetic acid, oil¬ 
cake meal, clay, crude potash and salt. 

“Process of making artificial fuel from 
sawdust, coal dust, peat and various 
forms of waste or earthy matter, with 
mineral oil. 

“Smokeless briquettes made of fine di¬ 
vided coal or other jcarbonaceous ma¬ 
terial, and a binder made from butchers’ 
waste. 

“Compressed artificial fuel, consisting 
of a mixture of coal ashes, sawdust, sand, 
paraffin wax and sodium nitrate. 

“Artificial fuel, consisting of coal 
dust, screenings, or waste, sawdust, rosin, 
sour beer and molasses, compressed. 

“Composite peat block, consisting of 
a core and shell, the shell being formed 
of pulverized peat and containing less 
moisture than the core.” 

A government expert says: 

“We shall be using briquettes on a 
large scale in this country within a very 



186 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


few years. This is an industry which, 
although it has no foothold today, is 
bound to come to the front. Conditions 
which have been unfavorable for it in the 
past are rapidly changing. In Germany 
one-third of the entire coal mined is lig¬ 
nite, nearly all of it being briquetted be¬ 
fore use. Briquettes are retailed there by 
count instead of weight. A German 
friend of mine recently told me that when 
he was at school he used to buy eight or 
ten briquettes each morning, put them 
into a porcelain stove, and close the 
draught tight. They would thus burn all 
day long. 

“For domestic purposes the briquette 
offers an exceedingly economical method 
of using coal. With lignite, or with the 
fine coal produced as the result of the 
mining industry, or even with very dry 
bituminous—as those coals are called 
which do not fuse when thrown on the 
grate—efficiency is greatly increased by 
this process. Lignite goes all to pieces 
under combustion, and with the other 
kinds that I have mentioned a large share 
of the combustible material is lost 
through the grate bars. If these were 
made sufficiently small to hold everything 
in. the air supply would he insufficient. 
But when these coals are manufactured 
into briquettes they hold together in that 
form until consumed. Everything burns 
to an ash and without clinkers. 

“From letters I received I am con¬ 
vinced that the era of the briquette is 
rapidly approaching. Experiments are 
in progress in many quarters. German 
and English manufacturers have been 
looking over this country with a view to 
establishing plants here; they think the 


market not quite ripe, I understand, but 
I believe they are mistaken.” 

PEAT IN GREATER QUANTITIES 
THAN WOOD AND COAL. 

Peat briquettes, all peat except a pinch 
of ashes, can now be made by improved 
processes for $1.21 a ton. The peat sup¬ 
ply increases proportionately with the 
distance from the equator. In cold and 
wet countries the climate does not well 
do the drying, and methods have conse¬ 
quently to be resorted to. So prepared, 
there is peat enough distributed here and 
there in the world to conduct a substan¬ 
tial civilization on for an indefinite suc¬ 
cession of centuries. Alaska has plenty 
of it, and so has Siberia, with ample de¬ 
posits in other far northern countries. 
Sweden already uses 2,000,000 tons of 
the briquettes yearly, and within fifty 
miles of Chicago and New York, are de¬ 
posits of the material sufficient to sup¬ 
ply those cities with fuel for a period to 
come, perhaps as long as they may have 
any use for fires or domestic hearths to 
light them on. One-seventh of the area 
of Ireland consists of peat bogs hereto¬ 
fore not to be profitably worked, but by 
the new process made as valuable as coal 
mines. 

FRICTION AS A HEAT PRODUCER 
INSTEAD OF COAL. 

The invention of a negro in St. 
Joseph, Mo., will probably revolutionize 
the heating systems of the world in a 
few years. Scientific men who have seen 
it believe that in a few years the pro¬ 
duction of heat by combustion will be a 
thing of the past, and that in the course 
of time, as improvements are made upon 




The “Wolvin,” the largest fresh-water ship in the world. Length, 560 feet; beam, 56 feet: depth. 32 feet: cargo capacity, 12,500 tons. 



































188 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the invention, coal and wood will no 
longer be used for heating purposes. 

The invention is that of Charles S. L. 
Baker, and it has been demonstrated that 
it will produce heat enough to warm the 
largest building in his city in the coldest 
weather, without the use of coal or wood. 
The heat is produced by friction. 

Baker has built a machine that pro¬ 


duces enough heat by friction to warm 
one of the largest buildings in St. Joseph. 
It has been installed in the basement of 
the First National Bank building and 
thousands of people have witnessed its 
wonderful work and have been forced to 
admit that he has solved the problem of 
heating without combustion. 


COCOONS AS A HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRY: 


In 1901, while traveling in the South, 
Secretary of Agriculture Wilson made up 
his mind that every possible effort ought 
to be made to improve the condition of 
the extremely poor people of the South¬ 
ern states. Among the ideas which sug¬ 
gested themselves to him was that of 
silk culture, which he well knew was a 
household industry in other parts of the 
world and added materially not only to 
the national wealth and prosperity of 
those countries in which it was carried on, 
but also to the family incomes of the poor. 
Thus it came about that he asked Con¬ 
gress to give him money for experiments. 

Silk culture was pursued in a small 
way by the early colonists of Virginia, 
South Carolina and Georgia, the reeled 
silk and cocoons being exported to 
Europe. It was introduced in New Eng¬ 
land as early as 1660. In 1835 Wind¬ 
ham County, Connecticut, produced four 
tons of cocoons. Interest in the industry 
became widespread and soon passed all 
bounds, giving rise to what came to be 
known as the “Morns multicaulis (mul¬ 
berry tree) craze.” Expecting a most 
profitable investment, if not speedy 
riches, thousands of persons purchased 
mulberry plants—they brought some¬ 


times as much as $5 apiece—and set them 
out over large areas of valuable land. 
The money expended was far in excess of 
possible returns. Frosts destroyed the 
trees and the bubble soon burst. 

But this gigantic failure did not prove 
that silk culture, properly pursued, could 
not be made a success in the United 
States, where the climate, over most of 
the country, is excellently adapted for 
the purpose. What should be realized is 
that there is not a fortune for anybody 
in the production of cocoons. In Europe 
silk-worms are raised on a small scale in 
a multitude of households, each of which 
adds a bit each year to the family income 
by turning out a few pounds of cocoons. 
If we succeed with the work on this side 
of the water it will be on that basis. 

GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGE¬ 
MENT. 

To encourage this work, the govern¬ 
ment instituted a complete silk-growing 
and silk-weaving plant, and opened an 
immediate market for the home-grown 
cocoons. 

All the cocoons that can be obtained 
from native growers are purchased, and 
the fibre is reeled from them in this 



189 


TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


government factory. The process is both 
pretty and interesting. The cocoons are 
thrown by handfuls into hot water, con¬ 
tained in shallow metal basins, and bob 
about in lively fashion as the silken 
threads are unwound from them. The 
silk, of a beautiful golden color, is fin¬ 
ally wound upon reels, on being taken 
from which it assumes the form of 
“hanks.” What is known as “floss,” or 
waste silk, is from the outside of the co¬ 
coons and is not employed for weaving, 
though it has other uses. 

AROUSING INTEREST IN SILK¬ 
WORMS. 

The department has found that it is 
easy enough to arouse an interest in silk 
culture. There are tens of thousands of 
persons in the United States who are 
eager to learn of some means whereby 
they may increase their incomes by ever 
so slight an amount. The only difficulty 
is to prevent the growth of extravagant 
ideas regarding the profits to he obtained 
from the industry. Many already have 
abandoned the work because they were 
not satisfied with the small sums received 
from the government for their cocoons. 
On the other hand, many seem to be 
much interested and content with what 
they get. It is believed that enough per¬ 
sons will take up the business and keep 
at it before long to assure a very large 
annual crop. 

Meanwhile it is tne policy of the gov¬ 
ernment to create for a time an artificial 
market, so to speak, in order to interest 
individuals throughout the country in the 
art of silk raising and to stimulate effort 
in the production of the best possible co¬ 
coons, the prices paid being according to 


quality. This plan, if Congress continues 
to supply the money, will be pursued until 
a time comes when a natural market is 
supplied. Meanwhile the raw silk turned 
out at the factory in Washington, while 



The Maudie airship, one most successful in 
England. 


of the finest quality, is produced at a 
loss, the cost of it being greater than the 
price it will fetch. This condition of af¬ 
fairs, however, is due largely to the fact 
that operations are 'Conducted on so small 
a scale. 












190 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THE FIRST STEP. 

The first requisite step in this great 
enterprise is to insure the planting in 
suitable places of enough mulberry trees 
to feed the worms. Large numbers of 
white mulberries grow here and there 
throughout the United States—some of 
them descendants of cuttings set out in 
the early thirties, during the famous 
silk-worm craze. Others are the result of 
the accidental distribution of seeds by 
birds. Altogether, enough of the trees 
already are growing to provide for a very 
considerable annual crop of cocoons. Bui 
it is desired to increase the available sup¬ 
ply as much as possible, and, with this 
end in view, cuttings are being furnished 
free of charge to applicants. 

This country imports annually about 
$42,000,000 worth of raw silk, half of 
which comes from Japan. From Italy 
we get about $10,000,000 worth, and 
from China more than $3,000,000 worth. 
France contributes $2,000,000 worth. 
It is a iot of money to spend for stuff 
which might be produced just as well at 
home. 

CIRCULAR ISSUED BY THE 
GOVERNMENT. 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT 
OF AGRICULTURE, 

Division of Entomology, 
Washington, D. C. 

CIRCULAR OF INFORMATION IN REGARD 
TO THE WORK IN SILK CULTURE. 

This division has been charged with an 
investigation of the possibilities of profit¬ 
able silk culture in the United States. 
Since it has already been shown that co¬ 
coons of excellent quality can be raised 
over practically the whole country 


(wherever the mulberry will grow), our 
first step is evidently to interest as many 
persons as possible in the cultivation of 
the silkworm in order that there may he 
a guaranteed supply of cocoons when the 
time comes for the establishment of silk 
reeling on a commercial basis. There¬ 
fore, to all persons wishing to engage in 
silk culture and who do not possess the 
necessary food plants, the Department 
will send mulberry cuttings in small 
numbers, and to those persons who already 
have the proper mulberry trees we will 
send, in season, enough of the silkworm 
eggs for a good start. It is hoped that 
before long private enterprise will take 
up the matter of erecting silk-reeling 
plants and thus create a permanent mar¬ 
ket for the cocoons. In the meantime, 
so long as Congress appropriates for the 
purpose, we will buy the cocoons at ap¬ 
proximately the current European market 
price, which is from 75 cents to $1 a pound 
for dried cocoons. We are operating a 
reel at this office in order to convert the 
cocoons into marketable raw silk. 

Persons who desire silkworm eggs 
should request them in March, April 01- 
May, giving a statement as to the num¬ 
ber and kind of mulberry trees to which 
they have access. The leaves of the 
white mulberry (Morns alba) and its 
varieties moretti, rosea, japonica, and 
multicaulis make the best silkworm food. 
The Russian mulberry, another variety of 
Moms alba known as tartarica, is also 
an excellent variety for this purpose and is 
best suited to the Northern States. The 
leaves of Osage orange make very good 
silkworm food if the young and too suc¬ 
culent ones are avoided. The native red 





TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


191 


mulberry and the paper mulberry are not 
at all suitable. 

We will distribute mulberry cuttings 
during winter and spring. 

It is hoped that silk culture may prove 
of benefit to those members of families 
whose time is not altogether occupied in 


other ways, and also to other persons in 
a small way as a side issue. 

L. O. Howard, 

Approved: Entomologist. 

James Wilson, 

Secretary of Agriculture. 

Washington, D. C., October 7, 1903. 


FROG RAISING. 


“Frogs!” said the marketman. “I 
could sell a thousand of them this minute 
if I had them. While the clubs and big 
hotels are crying for them we can't get 
a baker’s dozen in a week.” 

Recognizing the growing demand for 
frogs as an article of epicurean diet, the 
Fishing Commission of the State of Penn¬ 
sylvania has decided to encourage the 
raising of frogs by distributing free mil¬ 
lions of tadpoles to farmers and others 
who are in a position to take up frog rais¬ 
ing as an industry. Heretofore there has 
been little systematic attempt to supply 
the market with frogs. In vacation days 
bands of boys have hunted the marshlands 
in search of the croakers, knowing that 
they were sure of a little pocket money 
for the trouble of taking a basketful of 
“bulls” to market. 

The method of catching the frogs has 
been to fish for them with a hook and 
line, the bait being a piece of red flannel. 
The game will jump for this delusive 
temptation and find itself caught on the 
hook. Another way the boys have of ob¬ 
taining a supply of frogs for the market 
is to shoot them with small shot from an 
air rifle. The regular fishermen, those 
who eke out a living by catching frogs 
when fish are scarce, and who ply their 


trade in the swamplands of Jersey and 
elsewhere, depend on a net and the quick¬ 
ness of their hand to capture the elusive 
quarry. 

With only these irregular sources of 
supply the marketmen have been unable 
to furnish their customers with a steady 
quantity of frogs, and at times the cater¬ 
ers have been compelled to withdraw the 
item from the menus. The law govern¬ 
ing supply and demand has put the price 
of frogs in thes,e times to a figure that 
makes it actually profitable to raise them 
for market purposes, and the State of 
Pennsylvania intends to assist all who 
wish to take up the industry by supplying 
the nucleus for a froggery. 

Epicures say that fried frog is a dainty 
fit for a king. Some eat only the legs. 
In the markets, however, frogs are ex¬ 
hibited in their entirety, minus the skin. 
Tt is said that all parts of the frog are 
edible, but some limit their desires to the 
hind legs. The appearance of the frog, 
both before and after he has been pre¬ 
pared for sale in the market, is not appe¬ 
tizing, but those who are able to close 
their eyes to this drawback say that as 
between fried frog and fried chicken their 
preferences are decidedly with the former. 






192 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


PROGRESS OF ALASKA. 


For years Alaska was practically out of 
the world, and even the name of Seward, 
in connection with her, was a byword and 
a hiss. 

Today, however, matters look different. 
For years she has been pouring into the 
lap of Uncle Sam gold in super-abun¬ 
dant amounts, and only during this season 
her shipments aggregate $35,000,000— 
nearly five times the amount paid to Rus¬ 
sia for the Territory. 

And this is not all. The Territory is 
rapidly developing a diversity of re¬ 
sources that are astonishing not only the 
natives, but the world at large, and if 
these developments continue to pan out, 
as they are now showing up, it will not be 
many years until she will be knocking, 


fully equipped, at the door of the nation 
for statehood. 

As an indication as to her progress, 
Alaska has now four lines of railroad in 
partial or full operation, with two others 
in preliminary stages of construction, 
while proposed railroads are numerous. 

The principal camps now have tele¬ 
graphic communication with the outside 
world and a military cable line between 
Seattle and Juneau will be completed this 
summer. 

Nome alone received 75,000 tons of 
freight during the season of 1903, and 
more than 5,000 passengers arrived, while 
over 10,000,000 feet of lumber was 
landed there for building purposes. 


AN INSTANCE IN THE RISING VALUE 
OF REAL ESTATE. 


The lot at the northeast corner of State 
and Madison streets, Chicago, upon which 
an annual rental of $50,000 is being paid, 
and for which a purchase price of $1,500,- 
000 is reported to have been refused, 
sold as low as $327 early in the winter of 
1839, when the few whites of “Chicagou” 
found sport in hunting rabbits in the brush 
and wildwood between Van Buren and 
Twelfth streets. 

When Dr. Sylvester Willard paid the 
$327 in cold cash for “lot 8, block 14, 
Fort Dearborn addition,” the villagers 
were shocked. That Dr. Willard was 
prosperous in his practice was evident, else 
why should he indulge in such “reckless 
plunging?” It is true that some of the 
more critical of the villagers transferred 
their patronage to other doctors—there 


were three or four more here then, be¬ 
cause they feared that his judgment had 
become unreliable. Dr. Willard himself 
questioned the wisdom of his action, and 
before the ’40s were two years old he was 
“fortunate” enough to dispose of the land 
to Erastus Cole at a profit of a few dol¬ 
lars. 

Mr. Cole, too, concluded after a year 
that he had taken “an elephant on his 
hands,” and was happy to sell the lot to 
S. W. Peck, who, in 1845, transferred it 
to his partner in business, L. W. Boyce, 
for the handsome price of $750. 

Mr. Boyce’s judgment was questioned 
quite as harshly as Dr. Willard’s had 
been, but he defended his action by say¬ 
ing that the purchase was not made for 
investment purposes, but because he 







TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


193 


wanted a “nice, quiet spot for a home.” 
Mr. Boyce erected a house on the land 
and lived there several years with his 
family. 

The property changed hands a few 
more times, and in 1870 Marshall Field, 
foreseeing the future greatness of the 
city, bought the house and land for 
$191,000. 

It was now that the people were criti¬ 


cising Dr. Willard for disposing of the 
property. Also, the others through whose 
hands it had passed came in for their full 
shares of criticism. 

I wo decades ago Mr. Field negotiated 
a ninety-nine-year lease on the land, the 
annual rental being $40,000 for the first 
seven years and $50,000 a year for the 
balance of the period. 



Ready for a start. View of mechanism of modern dirigible airship. 


HOW AIR BRAKES WORK. 


Everyone has heard of the air brake 
and references to it are sure to be made 
when the subject of protection against 
railroad accidents is under discussion, but 
like many inventions in common use it 
is more or less of a mystery for which an 
explanation is demanded from time to 
time. 

The modern air brake consists of twelve 
parts, among which are: The air pump, 
which compresses the air; a main reser¬ 


voir, in which the air is stored; the engi¬ 
neers’ brake valve regulating the flow of 
air; the train pipe, which connects the 
brake valve with the triple valves under 
each car; the quick-action triple valve, 
controlling the flow of air to and from the 
auxiliary reservoir, which is supplied from 
. the main reservoir, and the brake cylin¬ 
der piston rod, which is forced outward, 
thereby applying the brakes. 

The theory of the air brake is the 
















194 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


equalization of pressures. When the 
brakes are not in action, the pressure on 
the train pipe is made such as to prevent 
an escape of air from the auxiliary reser¬ 
voir. When the engineer desires to make 
an application of brakes he turns his brake 
valve so that there is a moderate reduction 
of the pressure in the train pipe. This 
causes the greater pressure in the auxiliary 
reservoir to force air into the brake cylin¬ 
der, forcing the piston out and applying 
the brakes. 

When it is desired to release the brakes 
the engineer turns his valve in the opposite 
direction, permitting the air to flow from 
the main reservoir located on the engine 
into the train pipe. When the pressure, 
thus restored in the train pipe, is increased 
above the pressure in the auxiliary reser¬ 
voir certain valves are moved, communi¬ 


cation is thereby restored between train 
pipe and auxiliary reservoir, the piston 
is forced to its normal position, the air 
escapes from the brake cylinder and the 
auxiliary reservoir is recharged through 
the train pipe. 

When the train breaks in two or a hose 
pipe connection is broken it has the ef¬ 
fect of a sudden and material reduction of 
the pressure in the train pipe, the same 
as though the engineer had made an emer¬ 
gency application. The sudden reduction 
of pressure also opens supplementary 
valves, which increase the pressure upon 
the brake cylinder about 20 per cent. The 
brake shoes are attached to rods which 
are in turn attached to the piston in such 
manner that when the air from the auxil¬ 
iary reservoir forces the latter out a pull¬ 
ing force is exerted upon the brakes. 


BABY INCUBATORS. 


The name “incubator” we naturally as¬ 
sociate with the idea of hatching 
chickens without the aid of the patient 
hen. The principle in operation in the 
case of the undeveloped human infants is 
precisely the same. Heat is the essential 
factor in producing this artificial develop¬ 
ment; but it is heat regulated by limit¬ 
less skill and accompanied by infinite 
patience and devotion. 

NURSERY IN WHITE ENAMEL. 

Incubators of the Kny-Scherer pattern 
have the doors and sides of plate glass, 
so that the tiny occupants are plainly vis¬ 
ible to the visitors. 

The mechanism that fosters life in 
such puny infants as, a few years ago, 
were considered hopeless cases is almost 
as interesting as the babies themselves. 


Each incubator is attached to the fresh- 
air pipe through which the current of air 
is introduced by means of an electric 
fan. The air passes first through a box 
containing chemicals so that it is thor¬ 
oughly disinfected. Thence it circulates 
over hot water pipes and finally filters up 
through the mattress of absorbent cotton 
on which the small patient lies. By this 
means all dirt and germs are eliminated. 
The temperature is maintained by means 
of a series of hot water pipes in communi¬ 
cation with a tank that is heated by a gas 
jet. A thermostat containing ether 
serves as an automatic heat regulator. 

BOWS DISTINGUISH SEX. 

In addition to the hot water tank out¬ 
side, there is a tank beneath the baby’s 
mattress, so that if anything should go 



TRIUMPHS OF INVENTION AND ENTERPRISE 


195 


wrong with the apparatus the temperature 
could still be kept up. A thermometer 
and a barometer serve to show the exact 
condition of the atmosphere at all times. 
Very fragile babies, those that have re¬ 
ceived the poorest start in life, sometimes 
require a temperature of almost ioo de¬ 
grees. 

These are the infants whose entire cos¬ 
tume consists of a square of sterilized 
cheese cloth lined with a thick layer of 
absorbent cotton. This is folded around 
their tiny bodies, turned up over the little 
feet and securely pinned. The babies 
have but one ornament, a bow of pink 
ribbon if they happen to be boys and a 
bow of blue if they are girls. The very 
delicate ones are not bathed, but each 
morning are treated to a coat of warm oil, 
which both nourishes the tender body and 
aids in preventing the shock that the most 
carefully administered bath would be more 
than likely to produce. 

For blue babies, those whose respira¬ 
tory organs are poorly developed, there 
is the oxygen tank, that pumps a strong 
current of oxygen into the little lungs that 
have not yet learned to breathe. Blue 
babies are found among otherwise normal 
children, but this unnatural color is not a 
menace to life except when it is due to an 
imperfection of the heart or when the 
whole body is imperfectly developed. 


Among the latter kind some have a diges¬ 
tive system so poor that even the nour¬ 
ishment administered by a medicine drop¬ 
per cannot be used, because the tiny throat 
has not acquired the art of swallowing. 
In these cases gavage feeding, by means 
of a rubber tube and a bulb that works 
like a perfume atomizer, is resorted to. 

INFANTS FED OFTEN. 

The stronger babies soon learn to take 
the bottle, just as normal babies do. The 
nourishment is one of the greatest sources 
of care to the attendants. It is modified 
milk or beef juice or whatever the stom¬ 
ach can assimilate, but each baby has its 
own formula by which its food is pre¬ 
pared. All the little ones are fed at in¬ 
tervals of two hours during the day and 
three hours at night, which is a good 
rule for all young babies. 

The question most frequently asked is: 
“Where do the incubator babies come 
from and where are they going?” They 
come from all the maternity hospitals and 
from many private homes, and the most 
beautiftil thing about it is that the little 
pauper who has no parents and no home 
receives exactly as much care and atten¬ 
tion as is lavished upon the child of opu¬ 
lence that has been sent here because it 
is sure to receive the most scientific treat¬ 
ment. 


ELECTRICITY ON THE FARM. 

IT BIDS FAIR TO PLAY IMPOR- tion machines which do the work of many 
TANT PART IN AGRICULTURE. horses, the hay-loaders, the mechanical 

The automobile plow, the gigantic milkers and the endless variety of in¬ 
harvesters which cut, bind, thrash and genious and costly devices which now 
measure the wheat in one continuous op- beckon to the farmer and assault his 
eration, the various self-propelling trac- pocketbook may have led him to think 





196 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that perhaps the limit has been reached; 
for he has no hope that the greatest genius 
will be able to produce an electrical farm 
hand, which is his greatest need. Not 
so; the farmer of the future, if enthu¬ 
siasts say true, may be independent even 
of the sun; he may stand at his switch¬ 
board in the farm offices and throw out 
the electricity to the potatoes, send along 
a generous voltage to the beans, electrify 
the cabbages and wake them up to their 
duty and send a vivifying thrill through 
the homely but hygienic beet. 

A Belgian scientist*, Prof. Guarini, 
says that electricity is the life of plants. 
This electricity is supplied in the atmos¬ 
phere, but sometimes the supply is not 
generous enough. It is a mistake to 
think, he says, that light alone will nour¬ 
ish plants. Scientists have shown these 
forty years that artificial light is a great 
stimulus to plant life and that if electric 
light be applied at night in the right 
strength and for the right length of time 
the results in larger and more vigorous 
crops and plants will be startling. Prof. 
Gaurini shows in a simple experiment that 
it is not the light alone which does the 
work; it is the electric radiation combined 
with the light, whether the electric radi¬ 
ation come from the sun and its rays or 
from the arc lamp. He surrounds a plant, 
for instance, with a metal cage through 
which the sunlight streams freely, but the 


cage acts as a conductor for the atmos¬ 
pheric electricity and behold! the plant 
withers and becomes anaemic. 

On the other hand, a plant may be put 
in the dark and then given intelligent elec¬ 
trical treatment. The professor recom¬ 
mends the use of the high-tension continu¬ 
ous current, which, our farmers perhaps 
would like to know, may be obtained the 
most economically and efficiently from 
three dynamos, each capable of giving a 
current of 23,000 volts, the three to be 
coupled together, so that the maximum 
current of 69,000 volts may be sent out 
to the vegetables. By this method the 
carbonic acid in the chlorophyl is decom¬ 
posed, producing carbon and oxygen; the 
chemicals in the soil are also decomposed 
and the nourishing elements rush to the 
aid of the plant. By this method many 
fine crops could be raised in a season and 
the expenditure on a large operation 
would in time he justified. In a green¬ 
house where the conditions are just right 
for the control and expenditure of the 
electrical energy without wastage in the 
open air there is, according to the pro¬ 
fessor, no doubt of success. 

\\ e cite these scientific experiments in 
order to keep abreast of scientific en¬ 
deavor, but we do it timorously, because 
when the farmers hear of Prof. Guarini 
and his volts they will have something 
harsh to say about this scientific farming. 




BOOK III 

GREAT QUESTIONS 

AND 

INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 
AND CIVILIZATION 

Now Perplexing the Rulers of the World 


STATEMENT AND EXPLANATION OF THE WEIGHTY 
AFFAIRS OF STATE THAT ARE OF PERSONAL 
AND PUBLIC INTEREST IN THE 
GOVERNMENT OF NATIONS 






Hope amid the darkness and desolation of war. M. Thiriat, as a French conscript, knows 
something of the dark side of militarism. Here he pictures in the background the 
field of the Russian slain, with the hungry ravens flitting restlessly in the darkness 
and desolation above the mass of human beings, dead, wounded, and war-worn after 
the hard fight. But even in the midst of all this desolation shines the light of Help 
and Hope in the person of a nursing sister, on whose robe flames the Red Cress of 
the most beneficent order in the world. 























4r^^4 


GREAT QUESTIONS 

... -..,, . , AND __ . - 

INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT. 



WAR. 


ITS IRRECONCILABLE 
CONTRADICTIONS. 

AR, which is regarded as one 
of the greatest scourges of the 
human race, has in these later 
days been invaded by para- 
behind the grim and awful pres- 
war paradox grimly lurks, 
exhibiting a sardonic humor, at which 
men, albeit unwillingly, cannot but smile. 
Above the clash of arms and the fury of 
contending hosts in the Far East are heard 
the great guns of the pundits of Interna¬ 
tional Law, and it is in this obscure 
science that paradox pure and simple ap¬ 
pears to run riot at the present moment. 
Who so correct in their interpretation of 
war, as waged by civilized man, as the 
Japanese, whose courage is only equalled 
by their humanity, and the fury of whose 
attack is paralleled by their care for the 
wounded of the enemy ? And yet—Korea 
is nominally an independent power ow¬ 
ing' allegiance to its own emperor, and 
Manchuria is technically an integral por¬ 
tion of the Chinese empire! Does inter¬ 
national law permit of war between two 
countries taking place in the territories 
belonging to a third—and a fourth ? But 
this is happening, and the civilization of 
Europe has made no sign that an overt 
act infringing the right of neutrals is now 
in course of perpetration. From London 
and Vienna, from Petersburg and Paris, 


from Berlin and Rome, have come mut- 
terings such as precede the storm with re¬ 
gard to the entirely fresh and strikingly 
new interpretation of the rights of bel¬ 
ligerents on the high seas. 

THE GOLDEN RULE OF POWER. 

Authorities in the Russian capital are 
to be found to maintain the thesis that 
a ship can be a merchant vessel before 
she passes the Dardanelles and a man-of- 
war as soon as she reaches the Red Sea, 
and all this without infringing the Treaty 
of Paris of 1858; these are jurists of a 
singularly subtle turn of mind, but the 
direction in which they are tending makes 
once more for “The good old rule, the 
simple plan, That they should take who 
have the power, And they should keep 
who can!” But mark the argument. “A 
door,” say the Russian authorities, “can¬ 
not be both open and shut, and for years 
you, the Great Powers, knew that our 
volunteer fleet was passing freely in and 
out of the Black Sea, and you never pro¬ 
tested; now, when it is some use to us, 
you do; it is really most unreasonable.” 
Whether these same people expected Eng¬ 
land and Germany to acquiesce tamely in 
the wholesale stoppage, capture, and sink¬ 
ing of their merchant vessels it is impos¬ 
sible for outsiders to determine; but at 
all events their interpretation of the 
rights of belligerents as against neutrals 
certainly seems, in the opinion of these 



dox, and 
ence of 


199 






















200 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


latter, to savor of paradox, and, with 
considerable lack of humor, they have 
failed to appreciate the joke. 

We have seen that the very basis of 
International Law—that every country is 
master of its territory; and that, in that 
territory, no outsider possesses any rights 
at all—has been violated by both parties 
in the present conflict, and that one of 
them is creating new records in dealing 
with neutrals upon the high seas; the 
right of search apparently carrying with 
it the right of capture, and the right of 
destruction. But if we turn from this 
crude and elementary absurdity, which 
seems the fantastic vision of a madman, 
one has by no means done with paradox, 
as applied to war. 

PROBLEM OF WIRELESS TELEG¬ 
RAPHY. 

Let us take the case of wireless teleg¬ 
raphy, which, in the hands of a mischiev¬ 
ous third party, can be turned to uses by 
no means intended by the belligerents. 
Are we to contend, as did the Russians in 
the case of the Times steamer Haimun, 
that an installation of this new scientific 
wonder is contraband of war, and it is 
therefore competent for either side to cap¬ 
ture and hold the vessel in which such an 
apparatus is carried? 

If this is so, that is if wireless teleg¬ 
raphy is to be considered as contraband, 
in what category will the submarine cable 
stand ? 

Here again is a sort of glorious jumble, 
as the special conference on this matter, of 
1884, settled practically nothing. It cer¬ 
tainly laid down a rule that belligerents 
must not tamper with cables connecting 
neutral countries; but could merely ex¬ 


press pious and academic hopes regarding 
the fate of such as joined a neutral and a 
belligerent. No one in consecpience quite 
knows where he is in the matter, and 
when opinion is fluid in such things, con¬ 
venience is apt to dictate practice; espe¬ 
cially as a submarine cable may well prove 
a more formidable foe, or at all events, 
as formidable a one as the fleets and 
armies of the enemy. 

THE GREAT PEACE CONVENTION 
OF THE HAGUE. 

We have also the paradox of the de¬ 
cisions of The Hague convention. In the 
interests of humanity no one is allowed to 
fill shells with gases destined to asphyxiate 
the enemy when liberated; so far so good, 
but if a shell charged with any of the 
high explosives bursts, say, in the case¬ 
mate of a six-inch gun, those who are 
not killed by fragments thereof will most 
certainly be stifled by the fumes exhaled; 
but then these are, to start with, contained 
in the explosive before they are put in 
the shell. This, no doubt, will be a great 
comfort, in their last moments, to those 
who are put out of the world by this 
means. The use of electro-contact mines, 
containing anything from 500 to 1,000 
pounds of high explosive, is considered 
legitimate by all the nations, but there is 
no occasion to speak of the liberation of 
poisonous gases here, as the explosion 
takes place under water and its effect is 
to send a first-class battle-ship and her 
crew to the bottom. 

THE EVOLUTION OF MIGHT AND 
RIGHT. 

In the old days the great giant was 
supreme in his tribe. He could choke a 






GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 201 


bear with one hand. All looked up to 
him and bowed down to him. His word 
was law. 

Then came the sharp bow and arrow, 
and the little man standing off a few yards 
became the equal of the biggest man— 
his superior, in fact, since it was easier to 
hit a big man with an arrow than a small 
one. That was the first blow at physical 
violence. 

By and by the suit of steel armor came 
along, and the rich man who could pay 
the skilled Milanese artisan for his best 
work could ride, sword in hand, through 
a regiment of huge peasants, hewing them 
down at will. 

Along came gunpowder and the leaden 
bullet that could go through the finest 
steel. Armor vanished and kings and 
dukes got out of the habit of riding in 
front of their armies. 

For a little while individuals kept on 
their dueling, but they found it did not 
pay, and the men who formerly met on 
the “field of honor” now hire Choate or 
Hornblower, and fight it out up to the 
Supreme Court, with no more vicious 
weapon than the typewriter and the foun¬ 
tain pen. 

The nations are still conducting their 
quarrels as individuals did. But they will 
not keep at it long. 

England learned from the Boers what 
Russia is learning from the Japs—that a 
small power, able to shoot straight, is a 
dangerous thing for a great power to at¬ 
tack. 

Already the Russians find, as the Eng¬ 
lish did, that if they go a few thousand 
miles away from their own front yard they 
are helpless against a ridiculously inferior 
nation. 


The perfection of the flying machine is 
only a question of years. 

Give the Japanese today half a dozen 
flying machines, able to drop a few tons 
of dynamite into St. Petersburg and Mos¬ 
cow—and how long do you think it would 
be before Russia would ever again declare 
war on Japan? 

Enlightened individuals no longer fight 
today, because the smallest man can kill 
the biggest in a second, and because habit 
now makes us despise the brawler and 
fighter, as we formerly despised the man 
of peace. 

Before many years shall have passed 
the little nation, instead of being at a dis¬ 
advantage, will be better off in a fight 
than the big nation. 

Little Switzerland is kept free of in¬ 
terference by mutual consent of the pow¬ 
ers. But give her half a million tons of 
dynamite, a hundred good airships to drop 
the explosives, and what nation or com¬ 
bination of nations would dare to attack 
her? Her very littleness and poverty 
would be to her advantage. The great, 
rich nations would have everything to 
lose and nothing to gain. 

It does not take much of a look ahead 
to foresee an actual Parliament of Na¬ 
tions, where international trials will be 
held, and where all the nations of the 
earth will uphold the decisions of the 
court if necessary. 

That will be the beginning of a new 
day. When it comes, the armies that now 
march up and down practicing the art of 
murder will be devoted to great national 
and international works. The power of 
the nations will be devoted to the de¬ 
velopment of the world, and not to 
slaughter. 







202 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 
PEACE. 

Secretary Trueblood read in the after¬ 
noon of October 8, 1904, the last act of 
the International Peace Congress “An 
Appeal to the Nations,” in part as fol¬ 
lows : 

“The thirteenth international congress 


nessed before after a year of unexam¬ 
pled improvement in their cause. 

“The congress has deeply felt the bit¬ 
terness and irony of the situation from 
the one side. It has also been inspired 
with great hope and courage at the pros¬ 
pect which presents itself from the other 
side. 



This giant dredger is over 136 feet long, 24 feet wide, and ten feet deep. The bucket ladder 
is 88^2 feet long, and operates to a depth of forty-five feet beneath the surface of the 
water. At a recent experiment it dredged and discharged 4,536 tons of material into 
lighters in 319 minutes, or at the rate of 853 tons per hour. 


of the friends of peace, held in Boston, 
October 3 to 8, has met under unusual 
circumstances. On the one hand mur¬ 
derous war unsurpassed was ravaging a 
section of the globe. On the other hand, 
the friends of peace have gathered to¬ 
gether in their annual congress on this 
side of the globe in numbers never wit- 


“The cruel war in progress between 
Russia and Japan—a war which might 
easily have been avoided if the two bel¬ 
ligerents and the other powers signatory 
of The Plague convention had faithfully 
kept the obligations as summed in the 
convention—has made it clear that much 
yet remains in the eradication of old race 















GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 203 


and national prejudices, false ideas of na¬ 
tional greatness and glory, perverted con¬ 
ceptions of patriotism and territorial and 
commercial greed. 

“This has also anew demonstrated the 
necessity of the immediate extension and 
perfection of substitutes for violence in 
the settlement of international contro¬ 
versies. 

“The congress at the conclusion of the 
deliberation appeals to the peoples of all 
nations and of all classes to arouse them¬ 
selves to a finer and more adequate con¬ 
ception of their rights in the determina¬ 
tion of the foreign policies pursued by 
their governments, that they may no 
longer be involved, without their consent, 
in foolish and ruinous wars with other 
powers or in the unjust exploitation of 
those whom they are bound by every con¬ 
sideration of righteousness and honor to 


assist and elevate rather than to plunder 
and degrade. 

“It respectfully invites all the national 
sovereigns and presidents, all ministers 
of religion, all instructors of youth in 
schools of every grade and all others who 
wield influence in the moulding and di¬ 
recting of public opinion, to throw the 
entire weight not only of their personal 
influence, but of their positions, towards 
eradicating the causes of misunderstand¬ 
ing and conflict and the creation of such 
a complete pacific public sentiment as will 
in time render the barbarous method of 
war impossible.” 

The appeal was unanimously adopted 
and President Robert Treat Paine ad¬ 
journed the congress sine die after he 
had spoken the thanks of the congress to 
the press of the country for its reports of 
the proceedings. 


SCOPE OF OPERATIONS OF THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL, 
WHOSE PRINCIPLES GOVERNED THE INQUIRY 
IN THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN DISPUTE. 


The Hague peace conference, under 
the general principles of which Great 
Britain and Russia submitted their dis¬ 
pute over the attack of the Baltic fleet on 
the North Sea fishermen to an interna¬ 
tional tribunal, held its first session at 
The Hague, the capital of Holland, May 
18, 1899. It was an international body 
and assembled in response to an invita¬ 
tion of the Emperor of Russia, issued 
August 29, 1898. 

One hundred delegates, - representing 
twenty-one European powers, and also 
the United States, Mexico, China, Japan, 
Persia and Siam, were present. Italy ob¬ 
jected to the representation of the Vati¬ 
can and England to representation of the 


Transvaal Republic, and accordingly an 
agreement was reached to admit no repre¬ 
sentatives excepting those of states which 
maintained standing armies or navies. 
No delegates from the Central or South 
American republics attended. 

The conference was presided over by 
Baron de Staal of the Russian delega¬ 
tion. Its work was assigned to three 
grand committees, dealing respectively 
with armaments and engines of destruc¬ 
tion, humane regulations in warfare, and 
mediation and arbitration. This division 
was decided upon after the proposals of 
the Czar had been discussed. These had 
in view concerted action for the main¬ 
tenance of general peace, the ameliora- 



204 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tion of the hardships of war, and the pos¬ 
sible reduction of the military and naval 
armaments of the world. 

The conclusions of the conference were 
embodied in a final act signed July 29, 
the date of final adjournment. This act 
consists of three conventions, three for¬ 
mal declarations, and six resolutions. 
The first convention relates to the pacific 
adjustment of international disputes, and 
directly covers the case of the Baltic fleet. 
The second deals with the laws of war on 
land, and the third provides for adapting 
the rules of maritime warfare to the prin¬ 
ciple of the Geneva convention of 1864. 

The three declarations prohibit: 

1. The use of projectiles or explosives 
from balloons for a period of five years. 
This was adopted unanimously. 

2. The use of projectiles that diffuse 
asphyxiating or other deleterious gases. 
This was not accepted by England and 
the United States. 

3. The use of bullets that expand or 
flatten easily in the human body. 

In the six resolutions the conference 
first expressed the opinion that the lim¬ 
itation of military burdens was greatly 
to be desired, and this was unanimously 
agreed to; that the questions relating to 
the rights and duties of neutrals, the in¬ 
violability of private property in mari¬ 
time warfare, and the question of the 
bombardment of towns should be referred 
to a future conference, and that the ques¬ 
tions relating to the types and calibers of 
marine artillery and small arms and the 
size of military and naval budgets should 
be studied by the governments, with a 
view to establishing uniformity as to 
arms and a reduction of military and 
naval expenses. 


1 he mediation and arbitration agree¬ 
ment was probably the most important 
work of the conference. The signatory 
powers agreed to resort to mediation in 
cases of serious international disputes, 
and a method of procedure was provided 
by which mediation may be arranged at 
the instance of the powers directly inter¬ 
ested or by the voluntary offer of neutral 
governments. The convention further 
provides that advances for mediation 
never shall be considered by the disputing 
parties as an unfriendly act. 

NATIONAL HONOR. 

With a view to the adjustment of dif¬ 
ferences where neither “honor” nor “es¬ 
sential interests” are involved, a com¬ 
mission of inquiry is provided for. The 
duty of this commission shall be to ex¬ 
amine the controverted questions of fact, 
such as are susceptible of judicial ascer¬ 
tainment, and report the result of its in¬ 
quiries to the disputing powers for their 
acceptance or rejection. 

Finally, with a view to the settlement 
of international disputes by arbitration, 
a permanent court of arbitration was cre¬ 
ated. This tribunal is composed of per¬ 
sons eminent for their knowledge of in¬ 
ternational law, and is chosen by the par¬ 
ties concerned from a permanent list of 
arbitrators nominated by the signatory 
powers. Each power is allowed to name 
not more than four members, and their 
term of office is six years. In order to 
constitute the court for a particular case, 
each party to the controversy chooses two 
arbitrators, either from the list of per¬ 
manent members or from persons who 
are not members, and these select an 
umpire. There also are provisions for 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 205 


choosing an umpire in case the interested 
parties cannot agree, and also for regu¬ 
lating court procedures and for reviewing 
decisions. 

The diplomatic agents of the signatory 
powers resident at The Hague constitute, 
under the presidency of the Dutch min¬ 
ister of foreign affairs, a permanent coun¬ 
cil which serves the office of permanent 
court of arbitration. It should be under¬ 
stood, however, that none of the peace of¬ 
ficials of the tribunal has the right to take 
the initiative and institute a court of ar¬ 
bitration. The initiative must be taken 
by the governments who are parties to the 
disputes, and by both of them. 

SOME DECISIONS. 

The first decision by The Hague arbi¬ 
tration court was in 1902, when the 
United States won the Californian Pius 
Fund case against Mexico, the latter 
country having to pay $1,420,683, Mexi¬ 
can, besides an annual payment forever 
of $43,051- 

The second decision was handed down 
February, 1904, in the Venezuelan case. 
A dispute arose as to whether Great Brit¬ 
ain, Germany and Italy, who had taken 
strong measures against Venezuela, 
should receive preferential treatment for 
their monetary claims, as against the 
claims of others who did not use force 
against the republic. The court decided 
in favor of preferential payments to the 
three powers named. 

AMERICA’S CALL FOR A SECOND 
HAGUE CONFERENCE. 

In a circular note Secretary of State 
Hay carried out President Roosevelt’s in¬ 
structions relative to proposing a second 


Hague conference. The note not only 
contemplates the reassembling of The 
Hague conference for the consideration 
of questions specifically mentioned by the 
original conference as demanding further 
attention, such as the rights and duties of 
neutrals, the inviolability of private prop¬ 
erty in naval warfare and the bombard¬ 
ment of ports by naval force, but goes 
further by practically indorsing the proj¬ 
ect of a general system of arbitration 
treaties and the establishment of an in¬ 
ternational congress to meet periodically 
in the interests of peace. The issue of the 
call while the present war is in progress 
is justified by the fact that the first Hague 
conference was called before our treaty of 
peace with Spain was concluded. 

Department of State, 
Washington, D. C. 

October 21, 1904. 

To the Representatives of the United 
States Accredited to the Governments 
Signatories to the Acts of The Hague 
Conference, 1899. 

Sir. —The Peace Conference which as¬ 
sembled at The Hague on May 18, 1899, 
marked an epoch in the history of nations. 
Called by his majesty the Emperor of 
Russia to discuss the problems of the 
maintenance of general peace, the regula¬ 
tion of the operations of war and the les¬ 
sening of the burdens which preparedness 
for eventual war entails upon modern 
peoples, its labors resulted in the accept¬ 
ance by the signatory powers of con¬ 
ventions for the peaceful adjustment of 
international difficulties by arbitration, 
and for certain humane amendments to 
the laws and customs of war by land and 
sea. A great work was thus accom- 






200 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


plished by the conference, while other 
phases of the general subject were left to 
discussion by another conference in the 
near future, such as questions affecting 
the rights and duties of neutrals, the in¬ 
violability of private property in naval 
warfare, and the bombardment of ports, 
towns and villages by a naval force. 

PEACE BEGINNINGS. 

Among the movements which prepared 
the minds of government for an accord 
in the direction of assured peace among 
men, a high place may fittingly be given 
to that set on foot by the Interparlia¬ 
mentary Union. From its origin in the 
suggestions of a member of the British 
House of Commons in 1888, it developed 
until its membership included large num¬ 
bers of delegates from the parliaments of 
the principal nations, pledged to exert 
their influence toward the conclusion of 
treaties of arbitration between nations 
and toward the accomplishments of peace. 
Its annual conferences have notably ad¬ 
vanced the high purposes it sought to 
realize. Not only have many interna¬ 
tional treaties of arbitration been con¬ 
cluded, but, in the conference held in 
Holland in 1894, the memorable declara¬ 
tion in favor of a permanent court of ar¬ 
bitration was a forerunner of the most 
important achievement of the peace con¬ 
ference of The Hague in 1899. 

The annual conference of the Interpar¬ 
liamentary Union was held this year at 
St. Louis, in appropriate connection with 
the World’s Fair. Its deliberations were 
marked by the same noble devotion to 
the cause of peace and to the welfare of 
humanity which had inspired its former 
meetings. By the unanimous vote of 


delegates, active or retired members of 
the American Congress and of every par¬ 
liament in Europe, with two exceptions, 
the following resolution was adopted: 

PEACE CONFERENCE 
RESOLUTIONS. 

Whereas, Enlightened public opinion 
and modern civilization alike demand 
that differences between nations should 
be adjudicated and settled in the same 
manner as disputes between individuals 
are adjudicated, namely, by the arbitra¬ 
ment of courts in accordance with recog¬ 
nized principles of law, this conference 
requests the several governments of the 
world to send delegates to an interna¬ 
tional conference, to be held at a time 
and place to be agreed upon by them for 
the purpose of considering : 

1. The questions for the consideration 
of which the conference at The Hague 
expressed a wish that a future conference 
be called. 

2. The negotiation of arbitration 
treaties between the nations represented 
at the conference to be convened. 

3. The advisability of establishing an 
international congress to convene period¬ 
ically for the discussion of international 
questions. 

And this conference respectfully and 
cordially requests the President of the 
United States to invite all the nations to 
send representatives to such a conference. 

On the 24th of September, ultimo, these 
resolutions were presented to the Presi¬ 
dent by a numerous deputation of the In¬ 
terparliamentary Union. The President 
accepted the charge offered to him, feeling 
it to be most appropriate that the execu¬ 
tive of the nation which had welcomed 




GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 207 


the confeffence to its hospitality should 
give voice to its impressive utterances in 
a cause which the American government 
and people hold dear. He announced that 
he would at an early day invite the other 
nations, parties to The Hague conven¬ 
tions, to reassemble with a view to push¬ 
ing forward toward completion the work 
already begun at The Hague, by consid¬ 
ering the questions which the first con¬ 
ference had left unsettled, with the ex¬ 
press provision that there should be a 
second conference. 

In accepting this trust, the President 
was not unmindful of the fact, so vividly 
brought home to all the world, that a 
great war is now in progress. He re¬ 
called the circumstance that, at the time 
when, on August 24, 1898, his majesty 
the Emperor of Russia sent forth his in¬ 
vitation to the nations to meet in the in¬ 
terests of peace, the United States and 
Spain had merely halted in their struggle 
to devise terms of peace. While at the 
present moment no armistice between the 
parties now contending is in sight, the 
fact of an existing war is no reason why 
the nations should relax the efforts they 
have so successfully made hitherto to¬ 
ward the adoption of rules of conduct 
which may make more remote the chances 
of future wars between them. In 1899 
the conference of The Hague dealt solely 
with the larger general problems which 
confront all nations, and assumed no 
function of intervention or suggestion in 
the settlement of the terms of peace be¬ 
tween the United States and Spain. It 
might be the same with a reassembled 
conference at the present time. Its ef¬ 
forts would naturally lie in the direction 
of further codification of the universal 


ideas of right and justice which we call 
international law; its mission would be to 
give them future effect. 

The President directs that you will 
bring the foregoing considerations to the 
attention of the minister for foreign af¬ 
fairs of the government to which you are 

\ 

accredited, and, in discreet conference 
with him, ascertain to what extent that 
government is disposed to act in the 
matter. 

Should his excellency invite suggestion 
as to the character of the questions to be 
brought before the proposed second peace 
conference, you may say to him that, at 
this time, it would seem premature to 
couple the tentative invitation thus ex¬ 
tended with a categorical programme of 
subjects of discussion. It is only by com¬ 
parison of views that a general accord can 
be reached as to the matters to be consid¬ 
ered by the new conference. It is desir¬ 
able that in the formulation of a pro¬ 
gramme the distinction should be kept 
clear between the matters which belong 
to the province of international law and 
those which are conventional as between 
individual governments. The final act of 
The Hague conference, dated July 29, 
1899, kept this distinction clearly in sight. 
Among the broader general questions af¬ 
fecting the right and justice of the rela¬ 
tion of sovereign states, which were then 
relegated to a future conference, were: 
The rights and duties of neutrals; the in¬ 
violability of private property in naval 
warfare, and the bombardment of ports, 
towns and villages by a naval force. 1 he 
other matters mentioned in the final act 
take the form of suggestions for consid¬ 
eration by interested governments. 



208 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The three points mentioned cover a 
large field. The first, especially, touching 
the rights and duties of neutrals, is of 
universal importance. Its rightful dis¬ 
position affects the interests and well¬ 
being: of all the world. The neutral is 
something more than an onlooker. His 
acts of omission or commission may have 


year the Congress of the United States 
adopted a resolution reading thus: 

Resolved , By the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the L nited States of 
America, in Congress assembled : 

That it is the sense of the Congress of 
the United States that it is desirable in 
the interest of uniformity of action by the 



Enormous clam shell bucket of an automatic ore loader. 


an influence—indirect, but tangible—on 
a war actually in progress; whilst on the 
other hand he may, suffer from the exi¬ 
gencies of the belligerents. It is this 
phase of warfare which deeply concerns 
the world at large. Efforts have been 
made, time and again, to formulate rules 
of action applicable to its more material 
aspects, as in the Declaration of Paris. 
As recently as the 28th of April of this 


maritime states' of the world in time of 
war that the President endeavor to bring 
about an understanding among the prin¬ 
cipal maritime powers with a view of in¬ 
corporating into the permanent law of 
civilized nations the principle of the ex¬ 
emption of all private property at sea, 
not contraband of war, from capture or 
destruction by belligerents. 

Approved April 28, 1904. 


















GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOJ r ERNMENT 


209 


Other matters closely affecting the 
rights of neutrals are: The distinction to 
he made between absolute and conditional 
contraband of war, and the inviolability 
of the official and private correspondence 
of neutrals. 

As for the duties of neutrals toward 
the belligerents, the field is scarcely less 
broad. One aspect deserves mention, 
from the prominence it has acquired dur¬ 
ing recent times; namely, the treatment 
due to refugee belligerent ships in neutral 
ports. 

It may also be desirable to consider and 
adopt a procedure by which states non¬ 
signatory to the original acts of The 
Hague conference may become adhering 
parties. 

You will explain to his excellency, the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the 
present overture for a second conference 
to complete the postponed work of the 
first conference is not designed to super¬ 
sede other calls for the consideration of 
special topics, such as the proposition of 
the government of the Netherlands, re¬ 
cently issued, to assemble for the purpose 
of amending the provisions of the exist¬ 
ing Hague convention with respect to 
hospital ships. Like all tentative conven¬ 
tions, that one is open to change in the 
light of practical experience, and the 
fullest deliberation is desirable to that end. 

Finally, you will state the President’s 
desire and hope that the undying mem¬ 
ories which cling around The Hague as 
the cradle of the beneficent work which 
had its beginning in 1899 may be 
strengthened by holding the second peace 
conference in that historic city. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

John Hay. 


CONTRABAND OF WAR. 

POSITION TAKEN BY THE 
UNITED STATES. 

The United States refuses to recognize 
Russia's assertion that coal and raw cot¬ 
ton are contraband of war. The position 
of the Washington government was 
clearly set forth in an identical note ad¬ 
dressed by Secretary Hay to all American 
ambassadors in Europe on June 10, 1904. 

The key of the American position with 
reference to contraband of war is con¬ 
tained in the following paragraphs of 
Secretary Hay’s note: 

“The recognition in principle of the 
treatment of coal and other fuel and raw 
cotton as absolutely contraband of war 
might ultimately lead to a total inhibition 
of the sale by neutrals to the people of bel¬ 
ligerent states of all articles which could 
he finally converted into military uses. 

“Such an extension of the principle by 
treating coal and other fuel and raw cot¬ 
ton as absolutely contraband of war, 
simply because they are shipped by a neu¬ 
tral to a non-blockaded port of a bellig¬ 
erent, would not appear to be in accord 
with the reasonable and lawful rights of 
neutral commerce.” 

The circular is based on a declaration 
by the Russian government that coal, 
naphtha, alcohol, and other fuel have been 
declared contraband. 

TEXT OF THE HAY NOTE. 

The text of Secretary Hay's note to the 
American ambassadors in Europe fol¬ 
lows : 

“Department of State, Washington, D. 
C., June 10, 1904.—To the Ambassadors 
of the United States in Europe—Gentle¬ 
men : It appears from public documents 







210 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that coal, naphtha, alcohol, and other fuel 
have been declared contraband of war by 
the Russian government. 

“These articles enter into general con¬ 
sumption in the arts of peace, to which 
they are vitally necessary. They are 
usually treated not as ‘absolutely contra¬ 
band of war,’ like articles that are in¬ 
tended primarily for military purposes in 
time of war, such as ordnance, arms, am¬ 
munition, etc., but rather as ‘conditionally 
contraband’—that is to say, articles that 
may be used for or converted to the pur¬ 
poses of war or peace, according to cir¬ 
cumstances. They may rather be classed 
with provisions and foodstuffs of ordinar¬ 
ily innocent use, but which may become 
absolutely contraband of war when 
actually and especially destined for the 
military or naval forces of the enemy.’’ 

WHAT IS REAL CONTRABAND? 

In the war between the United States 
and Spain, the navy department, general 
orders, No. 492, issued June 20, 1898, de¬ 
clared, in article 19, as follows: 

The term contraband of war compre¬ 
hends only articles having a belligerent 
destination. Among other articles abso¬ 
lutely contraband it declared ordnance, 
machine guns, and other articles of mili¬ 
tary or naval warfare. It declared as con¬ 
ditionally contraband “coal, when destined 
for a naval station, a port of call, or a 
ship or ships of the enemy.’’ It likewise 
declared provisions to be conditionally 
contraband “when destined for the en¬ 
emy’s ship or ships, or for a place that is 
besieged.” 

The above rules as to articles absolutely 
or conditionally contraband of war were 
adopted in the naval war code, promul¬ 


gated by the navy department, June 27. 
1900. 

WHEN FOOD IS CONTRABAND. 

While it appears from the documents 
mentioned that rice, foodstuffs, horses, 
beasts of burden, and other animals which 
may be used in time of war are declared 
to be contraband of war only when they 
are transported for account of or in des¬ 
tination to the enemy, yet all kinds of 
fuel, such as coal, naphtha, alcohol, are 
classified along with arms, ammunition, 
and other *articles intended for warfare on 
land or sea. 

The test in determining whether articles 
ancipitis usus are contraband of war is 
their destination for the military uses of 
a belligerent. Mr. Dana in his “Notes to 
Wheaton's International Law” says: 

“The chief circumstance of inquiry 
would naturally be the port of destination. 
If that is a naval arsenal or a port in 
which vessels of war are usually fit¬ 
ted out, or in which a fleet is lying, or a 
garrison town, or a place from which a 
military expedition is fitting out, the pre¬ 
sumption of military use would be raised, 
more or less strongly, according to the 
circumstances. 

BRITISH POSITION OUTLINED. 

“In the wars of 1859 and 1870 coal 
was declared by France not to be contra¬ 
band. During the latter war Great Britain 
held that the character of coal depended 
upon its destination, and refused to per¬ 
mit vessels to sail with it to the French 
fleet in the North Sea. Where coal or 
other fuel is shipped to a port of a. bel¬ 
ligerent, with no presumption against its 
pacific use, to condemn it as absolutely 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 211 


contraband would seem to be an extreme 
measure.” 

RUSSIAN VIEW HAS CHANGED. 

Mr. Hall, international law, says: 

“During the West African conference 
in 1884 Russia took occasion to dissent 
vigorously from the inclusion of coal 
amongst articles contraband of war, and 
declared that she would categorically re¬ 
fuse her consent to any articles in any 
treaty, convention, or instrument whatever 
which would imply its recognition as such. 

RAW COTTON NOT CONTRABAND. 

“We are also informed that it is in¬ 
tended to treat raw cotton as contraband 
of war. While it is true that raw cotton 
could be made up into clothing for the 
military uses of a belligerent, a military 
use for the supply of an army or garrison 
might possibly be made of foodstuffs of 
every description which might be shipped 
from neutral ports to the non-blockaded 
ports of a belligerent. 

“The principle under consideration 
might, therefore, be extended so as to ap¬ 
ply to every article of human use, which 
might be declared contraband of war 
simply because it might ultimately become 
in any degree useful to a belligerent for 
military purposes. 

“Coal and other fuel and cotton are 
employed for a great many innocent pur¬ 
poses. Many nations are dependent on 
them for the conduct of inoffensive in¬ 
dustries, and no sufficient presumption of 
an intended war-like use seems to be af¬ 
forded by the mere fact of their destina¬ 
tion to a belligerent port. 

CANNOT RECOGNIZE PRINCIPLE. 

“The recognition, in principle, of the 
treatment of coal and other fuel and raw 


cotton as absolutely contraband of war 
might ultimately lead to a total inhibition 
of the sale by neutrals to the people of 
belligerent states, of all articles which 
could be finally converted to military uses. 
Such an extension of the principle of 
treating coal and all other fuel and raw 
cotton as absolutely contraband of war 
simply because they are shipped by a neu¬ 
tral to a non-blockaded port of a bellig¬ 
erent would not appear to be in accord 
with the reasonable and lawful rights of 
a neutral commerce.” 

COST OF MILITARY PREPARED¬ 
NESS. 

It takes nowadays years of peace to pre¬ 
pare for a year of war, and the work of 
preparation is more costly than of old. 
Major General Corbin, speaking at the re¬ 
union of the Seventy-ninth Ohio Volun¬ 
teer Infantry, in which he served during 
the Civil War, said a year must elapse after 
an order has been given for six-inch guns 
for seacoast defenses before any consid¬ 
erable number can be delivered. The ten- 
inch guns require fifteen months’ time, and 
the twelve-inch twenty months. It will 
take, at the present rate of manufacture, 
about twenty-five years to make the proper 
amount of reserve fixed ammunition for 
the heavy guns which will finally be 
mounted along the American seacoast. 

The guns cost from $5,000 to $60,000 
apiece. The cost of ammunition a round 
ranges from $4.25 for the smaller pieces 
to $440 for the twelve-inch guns. Before 
the twenty-five years are up some of the 
heavy ordnance now mounted may be¬ 
come obsolete and have to be thrown 
away. A nation which wishes to fight 
to the best advantage must, like the manu¬ 
facturer who wishes to run his factory to 






212 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the best advantage, have a scrap heap, 
and throw on it guns or machines when 
better ones are in the market. It will 
take a great deal of money to keep up 
with the times, but the money must be 
spent. 

General Corbin says that when the war 
with Spain, which lasted only a few 
months and did not call for much prepar¬ 
ation, broke out, “the canvas for the tents 
had to he woven, the wagons for the 
transportation had to be built, the cloth¬ 
ing for the volunteers was at the time 
wool on the hacks of the sheep.” In al¬ 
most every way the country was unready. 
There was no lack of patriotism, hut un¬ 
armed, unequipped, untrained patriotism 
can do little. The country ought not to 
he aeain so unreadv to take the field as 

O j 

it was in the spring of 1898. 

Nor is it enough to have stores of guns, 
ammunition, clothing, and other army 
supplies. General Corbin says : “The day 
of volunteers, pure and simple, has passed 
away, hut the day of the trained volun¬ 
teer soldier has come to remain so long as 
soldiers are required by us.” 

LOSS OF LIFE THROUGH WAR. 

Professor Charles Richet, the noted 
apostle of peace, says that during the nine¬ 
teenth century fourteen millions of hu¬ 
man beings died in consequence of war. 

“Napoleon,” he said, “is usually cred¬ 
ited with having caused the death of two 
million men. As a matter of fact, eight 
millions of men died for his glory. The 
war of the Crimea cost 300,000 lives, the 
American Civil war 500,000, Prussia 
doomed 800,000 men to death between 
i860 and 1871, the Russo-Turkish war 
400.000. 


“The wars in the South American re¬ 
publics are generally laughed at,” said 
the professor, “but as a matter of fact 
they are far from ridiculous. In the nine¬ 
teenth century they cost, all told, 500,- 
000 lives. 

“The various European colonizing 
powers sacrificed during the nineteenth 
century three millions of men to obtain 
dominion in British India, South Africa, 
Mexico, the Dutch Indies, China, Japan 
and other places. The estimate of four¬ 
teen millions of men lost embraces only 
those who were actually killed on the so- 
called ‘field of honor' and those who died 
in hospitals in consequence of wounds re¬ 
ceived. Add to these fourteen millions 
the sum of misery caused by illness due 
to war and by death due to economic con¬ 
ditions, fire and violence of all sorts.” 

The professor concluded : “I am sorry 
to say that the twentieth century bids fair 
to rival the nineteenth century in whole¬ 
sale manslaughter.” 

LOSS OF LIFE BY ANCIENT AND 
MODERN WEAPONS. 

Terrible as is the destructive power of 
modern rifles and artillery, the loss of life 
in battles of today is nevertheless but 
small as compared with the losses in the 
days of the battle-ax and the long-bow. 
In the sixteen hours’ struggle against 
Russian artillery at Nanshan the Japan- 
nese lost only 4,000 men out of 60,000, 
and of these only 750 were killed. At 
Colenso in the Boer war the British losses 
were only 1,100 out of 25,000. 

Compare this, for example, with the 
battle of Agincourt in 1415. Fourteen 
thousand Englishmen overthrew 50.000 
French in three hours. The French 




View of hallway in typical modern city jail after the prisoners are locked in their cells. 


































































214 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


losses were 10,000 dead and two or three 
times that number of wounded. At Crecy 
in 1346 the English, numbering 30,000, 
again proved the effectiveness of their 
long-bows on 120,000 French, whose 
losses were 1,200 knights, 1,400 esquires 
and 34,000 men, the number killed out¬ 
right being no less than 30,000. At Poi¬ 
tiers the French army of 60,000 had 11,- 
000 killed. At blastings 30,000 men fell 


on both sides and at Bannockburn 38,000. 

It was the close fighting in the old days 
that made the battle so destructive of 
life. The long-bow’s greatest effective 
range was not over 1,200 feet, and when 
armies clashed a commander had little 
chance to recognize his enemy’s superior¬ 
ity in time to save himself, and no chance 
at all to disentangle his men, even if he 
saw his doom. 


CAUSE OF JAPAN’S WARS WITH CHINA AND RUSSIA. 


The war between China and Japan was 
provoked by the efforts of the latter gov¬ 
ernment to control Korea, and in 1895 
Japan demanded, among other things, as 
the price of peace, the cession of the Fiao- 
tung Peninsula, the tip end of Manchuria, 
including the naturally fortified promon¬ 
tory of Port Arthur, which commands the 
entrance to the Gulf of Pechili, upon 
which Tientsin, Peking and other import¬ 
ant Chinese cities are situated. China 
consented to the transfer of this territory, 
but Russia interfered, and, with the sup¬ 
port of Germany and France, compelled 
Japan to restore it on the pretext that the 
peace of the world and the equal rights of 
all nations in China prohibited so import¬ 
ant a strategical point to be controlled by 
a single nation. Thus, with the aid of 
Germany and France, Russia compelled 
Japan to evacuate Port Arthur, and re¬ 
linquish her claims to the Fiaotung Penin¬ 
sula. Japan, exhausted by her struggle 
with China, had no choice but to submit. 
The feeling of her government and her 
people may be imagined when Russia 
stepped in immediately afterward and took 
possession of the territory she had evacu¬ 
ated, and planted guns upon the fortifica¬ 
tions she had erected. 


RUSSIAN AGGRESSION. 

Then Russia demanded of China a 
right of way for a railroad across Man¬ 
churia and the practical permanent posses¬ 
sion of Port Arthur as a reward for hav¬ 
ing forced Japan out. By way of saving 
the situation in some measure, Japan de¬ 
manded a guarantee that neither Port Ar¬ 
thur nor any other portion of Manchuria 
should ever be ceded or leased to or oc¬ 
cupied by any foreign power. France and 
Germany notified Japan that if she pressed 
such a demand it would meet with their 
displeasure, and Count Cassini, now min¬ 
ister to Washington, who was then rep¬ 
resenting Russia at Peking, succeeded in 
persuading and intimidating China into 
a secret treaty in which Russia was 
granted permission to occupy the entire 
territory of Manchuria, including that 
from which Japan had been ejected, not 
only with a railway, but with troops and 
fortifications. In other words, Russia se¬ 
cured by intrigue much more than Japan 
had ever demanded as the right of con¬ 
quest. 

JAPAN ROBBED OF RIGHTS. 

Japan was unjustly deprived of rights 
fairly acquired and conceded by China, 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 215 


and she would not have submitted but for 
the attitude of Germany and France. 
Both nations, having similar designs upon 
Chinese territory, were anxious to have 
Russia establish a precedent for their 
benefit. When Japan moved out of the 
Liaotung Peninsula Russia moved in, still 
supported by Germany and France. 
China, helpless, could not even remon¬ 
strate. Japan bitterly realized the injus¬ 
tice and wrong, but maintained an honor¬ 
able and dignified attitude and proceeded 
to double her army, treble her navy, ac¬ 
cumulate ammunition, erect arsenals at 
convenient points throughout her terri¬ 
tory, and build fortifications along her 
coast, for it was written in the book of 
fates years ago that there should be war 
between the Japanese and the Muscovites. 

There was an ancient feud smoldering; 
an ancient wrong unredressed, and a re¬ 
sentment which had been bravely sup¬ 
pressed for many years, but never extin¬ 
guished. It grew out of the seizure of the 
Island of Sakhalien by Russia when Japan 
was too feeble to defend her rights. 

Sakhalien lies north of Japan, along the 
coast of Siberia, and for ages its shores 
have been a valuable fishing ground for 
the Japanese. It is a bleak, barren mass 
of rocks, with a most inhospitable climate 
and a scanty population of squatters liv¬ 
ing without a government. But these 
squatters were all Japanese subjects and 
the island had always been considered a 
part of the Japanese Empire. It so ap¬ 
peared upon the Russian maps. But its 
location with relation to Vladivostok made 
its occupation by Russia expedient, and, 
without consulting Japan, China, Korea, 
or any other neighbor, Russia calmly 
moved over, took possession, erected for¬ 


tifications and prisons and made Sakhal¬ 
ien a convict colony. At that time Japan 
had no navy and her army was not or¬ 
ganized for foreign fighting. She was a 
hermit; she had not been initiated into the 
society of nations; she had no diplomatic 
representatives at the European capitals, 
and she was coolly robbed of a large ter¬ 
ritory just as impotent nations have been 
robbed many times before. While she 
was compelled to submit she has not for¬ 
gotten and all these years her people have 
been waiting for an opportunity for re¬ 
venge. 

The Lhiited States and Great Britain 
united with Japan in supporting China 
against the exorbitant demands of Russia, 
and, for some reason never explained, the 
latter was induced to sign a treaty agree¬ 
ing to withdraw her troops from Man¬ 
churia in three installments. Each step 
of evacuation was to take place upon a 
fixed date, and through the United States 
ambassador at St. Petersburg and the 
Russian ambassador at Washington 
the czar’s government repeatedly renewed 
the assurance that it would fulfill the en¬ 
gagement. But when the ist of October 
1903 arrived, the date of evacuation, 
Russia behaved exactly as if no promise 
had ever been given, and instead of with¬ 
drawing her troops and abandoning her 
fortifications, as she had agreed to do, her 
minister at Peking demanded additional 
concessions, which practically amounted 
to the transfer of the entire territory of 
Manchuria from China to the czar. Great 
Britain and the United States made rep¬ 
resentations which were never satisfied, 
and Japan decided to bring matters to a 
crisis. 






216 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


JAPANESE DEMANDS. 

A guarantee of the security of Jap¬ 
anese interests in Manchuria was de¬ 
manded and Baron Komura, minister of 
foreign relations at Tokio, submitted a 
new series of propositions which pledged 
Russia and Japan jointly to protect the 
independence and integrity of both China 
and Korea. it provided that Russia 
should practically exercise a protector¬ 
ate over Manchuria and Japan over 
Korea, with a neutral zone extending 
fifty kilometers on either side of the 
boundary between Manchuria and Korea, 
into which neither should ever introduce 
troops. 

Forty-one days later Baron Rosen, the 
Russian minister at Tokio, handed a re¬ 
ply to the foreign office which accepted 
Japan’s propositions concerning Korea, 
but contained no reference to Manchuria 
whatever. This was a bold denial of 
Japan’s right to be consulted in Chinese 
affairs. Baron Komura informed Rus¬ 
sia that his government could not accept 
such a reply; it was not admissible. The 
object of Japan in proposing a new treaty 
was to secure the recognition of her 


rights in Manchuria and the protection o r ' 
her interests there; and to secure a guar¬ 
antee of the integrity of Chinese terri¬ 
tory, and he hinted significantly that 
“further delay in the solution of those 
questions will be extremely disadvanta¬ 
geous for both countries.” 

RUSSIAN POLICY OF DELAY. 

That communication reached Russia 
January 13, 1904. but received no atten¬ 
tion. January 23 Mr. Kurino asked for 
an answer. He repeated the request one 
week later, and again at the end of the 
second week, when Count Lamsdorf, the 
Russian minister of foreign relations, ex¬ 
pressed his regret that it was impossible 
to fix a date for Russia’s reply. That was 
a diplomatic way of explaining that none 
would be given; that the claims of Japan 
to be consulted concerning Manchuria 
were denied ; that her pretensions were not 
admitted. In the meantime, realizing that 
Russia was hastening preparations for 
hostilities, Mr. Kurino was instructed to 
retire from St. Petersburg, and on the 
5th of February war was declared. 


NATIONAL EXPANSION AND PROPHECY. 


Prof. Karl M. Lambrecht of the Uni¬ 
versity of Leipzig, says that heretofore 
it has been generally held that a nation 
expanding by acquiring colonies and for¬ 
eign territory with foreign tribes and 
populations is lessening its inherent com¬ 
pactness and strength, as by so doing not 
only does it lose that part of its home 
population which emigrates to settle the 
new territories, but these new branches 
will eventually part from the parent stem. 


The professor maintains that this be¬ 
lief is erroneous; that a nation to become 
great requires space and expansion. 
Though the new territories and their pop¬ 
ulations will, in the course of their de¬ 
velopment, owing to geographical and 
other causes, present features and traits 
of character somewhat different from 
those of the mother country, neverthe¬ 
less the nation will gain in strength and 
world influence. 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OE GOVERNMENT 217 


GROWTH OF AMERICA. 

Professor Lambrecht, in support of his 
theory, points to England and the United 
States, they having by their expansive 
movements brought about a centralization 
and unification of various countries and 
peoples, increasing immensely thereby 
their inherent strength and their power 
as world motors, making the English lan¬ 
guage the chief method of communication 
over the globe and representative of the 
world's progressiveness. In the exposi¬ 
tion of his views the professor calls at¬ 
tention specifically and at length to the 
development of the United States and ex¬ 
claims: “Has the immense territorial ex¬ 
pansion of the great republic weakened 
or suppressed its political life. J By no 
means; on the contrary, each state or ter¬ 
ritory added or annexed has added nu¬ 
trition and has given a higher plane to 
the nation's political life.” 

The concluding passage of the profes¬ 
sor’s essay advises his countrymen to 
emulate the example given by the United 
States and England, and he indulges in 
the hope that Germany will use all means 
in order to obtain a necessary amount of 
sunlit space; that is, a good slice of for¬ 
eign territory, for purposes of expansion 
and centralization, as elucidated in his es¬ 
say. 

GERMANY’S COAST LINE. 

Germany at the present time has too 
limited a coast line to become a great sea 


power. Her few ports could be too easily 
bottled up by blocking fleets for her to 
accomplish anything against a great naval 
power, and therefore it must be expected 
that unceasing exertions will be made to 
acquire other outlets. Holland, Den¬ 
mark, Sweden and Norway are possible 
subjects for German expansion so as to 
acquire sea room. But any attempt on 
these countries will mean war, and that 
is something not to be considered at this 
time. But after the Russo-Japanese war 
in all probability the prestige of Russia as 
a great power may be so much impaired 
as to lead to new adjustments of interna¬ 
tional relations and of the political pow¬ 
ers of Europe. An alliance between Rus¬ 
sia and Germany to alter the status of the 
nationalities around the Baltic and North 
seas and of those around the Black sea 
and the Dardanelles might be the pre¬ 
lude to startling changes in the affairs of 
Europe. Apparently Russia is going most 
seriously to need an alliance that can be 
depended on in strenuous conditions, 
while Germany will find such a connection 
with her great eastern and northern neigh¬ 
bor the most desirable that can be se¬ 
cured. The recent rapprochement between 
England and Erance and the defeat of 
Russia in Asia seem to have combined 
to weaken the bonds of the Russo-French 
alliance which was so eagerly entered into 
a few years ago. 


GOVERNMENT CIVIL SERVICE. 

The civil service and its operations are direct employer of skilled service in the 
interesting alike to the aspiring student world. This service is so regulated by 
and the tax-paying voter. The govern- law that a position once secured is for 
ment of the United States is the largest life, and promotion is reasonably rapid. 




218 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


A letter to the United States Civil 
Service Commission, Washington, D. C., 
will have prompt answer with full printed 
information upon anything asked for 
within its jurisdiction. The following 
are the principal general facts as to first 
requirements: 

OFFICERS. 

Three commissioners are appointed by 
the president to assist him in classifying 
the government offices and positions, 
formulating rules and enforcing the law. 
Their office is in Washington, D. C. The 
chief examiner is appointed by the com¬ 
missioners to secure accuracy, uniform¬ 
ity and justice in the proceedings of the 
examining boards. The secretary to the 
commission is appointed by the president. 

GENERAL RULES. 

The fundamental rules governing ap¬ 
pointments to government positions are 
found in the civil-service act itself. Based 
upon these are many other regulations 
formulated by the commission and pro¬ 
mulgated by the president from time to 
time as new contingencies arise. The 
present rules were approved March 20, 
1903, and went into effect April 15, 1903. 
In a general way they require that there 
must be free, open examinations of appli¬ 
cants for positions in the public service; 
that appointments shall be made from 
those graded highest in the examinations; 
that appointments to the service in Wash¬ 
ington shall be apportioned among the 
states and territories according to popu¬ 
lation; that there shall be a period (six 
months) of probation before any abso¬ 
lute appointment is made; that no person 
in the public service is for that reason 


obliged to contribute to any political fund 
or is subject to dismissal for refusing to 
so contribute; that no person in the pub¬ 
lic service has any right to use his official 
authority or influence to coerce the politi¬ 
cal action of any person. Applicants for 
positions shall not be questioned as to 
their political or religious beliefs and no 
discrimination shall be exercised against 
or in favor of any applicant or employe 
on account of his religion or politics. The 
classified civil service shall include all of¬ 
ficers and employes in the executive civil 
service of the United States except labor¬ 
ers and persons whose appointments arc 
subject to confirmation by the senate. 

EXAMINATIONS. 

These are conducted by boards of ex¬ 
aminers chosen from among persons in 
government employ and are held twice a 
year in all the states and territories at con¬ 
venient places. In Illinois, for example, 
they are usually held at Cairo, Chicago 
and Peoria. The dates are announced 
through the newspapers or by other 
means. They can always be learned by 
applying to the commission or to the near¬ 
est postoffice or custom house. Those 
who desire to take examination are ad¬ 
vised to write to the commission in Wash¬ 
ington for the * “Manual of Examina¬ 
tions,” which is sent free to all applicants. 
It is revised semi-annually to January 1 
and July 1. The January edition contains 
a schedule of the spring examinations and 
the July edition contains a schedule of the 
fall examinations. Full information is 
given as to the methods and rules govern¬ 
ing examinations, manner of making ap¬ 
plication, qualifications required, regula¬ 
tions for rating examination papers, cer- 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OE GOVERNMENT 


219 


tification for and chances of appointment, 
and as far as possible it outlines the scope 
of the different subjects of general and 
technical examinations. These are prac¬ 
tical in character and are designed to test 


the military or naval service for disabil¬ 
ity resulting from wounds or sickness in¬ 
curred in the line of duty need obtain but 
sixty-five per cent. The period of eligi¬ 
bility is one year. 



A novel feature in the Royal Military Tournament, London, England. “Push-ball” on 
horseback. The black horses not only have no fear of the immense ball, but having 
learned that contact with it will do them no harm they even seem to enjoy the fun 
of shoving it about with chests and knees, and occasionally opposing it with their 


hindquarters. The admirable horsemans 
ducive to the success of this new sport. 

the relative capacity and fitness to dis¬ 
charge the duties to be performed. It is 
necessary to obtain an average percentage 
of seventy to be eligible for appointment, 
except that applicants entitled to prefer¬ 
ence because of honorable discharge from 


p of the riders is, of course, mainly con- 

QUALIFICATIONS OF APPLI¬ 
CANTS. 

No person will be examined who is not 
a citizen of the United States; who is not 
within the age limitations prescribed: 
who is physically disqualified for the serv- 










220 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ice which he seeks; who has been guilty 
of criminal, infamous, dishonest or dis¬ 
graceful conduct; who has been dismissed 
from the public service for delinquency 
and misconduct or has failed to receive 
absolute appointment after probation; 
who is addicted to the habitual use of 
intoxicating liquors to excess, or who has 
made a false statement in his application. 
The age limitations in the more important 
branches of the public service are: Post- 
office, 18 to 45 years; rural letter carriers, 

1 7 to 55; internal revenue, 21 years and 
over; railway mail, 18 to 35; lighthouse, 

18 to 50; life-saving, 18 to 45; general 
departmental, 20 and over. These age lim¬ 
itations are subject to change by the com¬ 
mission. They do not apply to applicants 
of the preferred class. Applicants for 
the position of railway mail clerk must 
be at least 5 feet 6 inches in height, ex¬ 
clusive of boots or shoes, and weigh not 
less than 135 pounds in ordinary clothing 
and have no physical defects. Applicants 
for certain other positions have to come 
up to similar physical requirements. 

METHOD OF APPOINTMENT. 

Whenever a vacancy exists the appoint¬ 
ing officer makes requisition upon the 
civil-service commission for a certifica¬ 
tion of names to fill the vacancy, specify¬ 
ing the kind of position vacant, the sex 


desired and the salary. The commission 
thereupon takes from the proper register 
of eligibles the names of the three persons 
standing highest of the sex called for and 
certifies them to the appointing officer 
who is required to make the selection. He 
may choose any one of the three names, 
returning the other two to the register to 
await further certification. The time of 
examination is not considered, as the 
highest in average percentage on the reg¬ 
ister must be certified first. If after a 
probationary period of six months the 
name of the appointee is continued on the 
roll of the department in which he serves 
the appointment is considered absolute. 

REMOVALS. 

No person can be removed from a com¬ 
petitive position except for such cause as 
will promote the efficiency of the public 
service and for reasons given in writing. 
No examination of witnesses nor any trial 
shall be required except in the discretion 
of the officer making the removal. 

SALARIES. 

Entrance to the departmental service is 
usually in the lowest grades the higher 
grades being generally filled by promo¬ 
tion. The usual entrance grade is about 
$900, but the applicant may be appointed 
at $840, $760 or even $600. 


MILITARY EDUCATION. 


The United States Military Academy 
at West Point was founded in 1802. 
Each Congress district and territory, the 
District of Columbia and Porto Rico is 
entitled to have one cadet at the academy. 
Each state is also entitled to have two 
cadets at the academy from the state at 


large. Forty are also appointed from the 
United States at large. The appointments 
(except those from the United States at 
large and from the District of Columbia) 
are made by the Secretary of War at the 
request of the senator, representative or 
delegate in Congress; and the person ap- 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 221 


pointed must be an actual resident of the 
state, district or territory from which the 
appointment is made. The appointments 
from the United States at large and from 
the District of Columbia are specially con¬ 
ferred by the President. The appointment 
of the cadet from Porto Rico is made by 
the President on the recommendation of 
the resident commissioner from Porto 
Rico. The number of students is thus 
limited to 522. 

Appointments are required by law to 
be made one year in advance of date of 
admission, and may be made either af¬ 
ter competitive examination or given di¬ 
rect, at the option of the representative. 
For each candidate appointed there may 
he nominated two alternates, who will 
be examined with the regular nominee, 
and one of whom may be admitted in the 
event of the latter's failure to pass the 
prescribed preliminary examinations. 
Appointees to the Military Academy must 
be between seventeen and twenty-two 
years of age at date of admission, at 
least five feet three inches in height, 
weigh 100 pounds, be unmarried, free 
from any infectious or moral disorder, 
and, generally, from any deformity, dis¬ 
ease or infirmity; must be well versed in 
reading, in writing, including orthog¬ 
raphy, in arithmetic, and have a knowl¬ 
edge of the elements of English gram¬ 
mar, of descriptive geography (particu¬ 
larly of the United States), and of the 
history of the United States. The course 
of instruction requires four years, and is 
largely mathematical and professional. 

REMUNERATION. 

The pay of a cadet is $500 per year 
and one ration per day, or commutation 


therefor at thirty cents per day. The total 
is $609.50, to commence with his ad¬ 
mission to the Academy. The actual and 
necessary traveling expenses of candi¬ 
dates from their homes to the Military 
Academy are credited to their accounts 
after their admission as cadets. There 
is no provision for paying the expenses 
of candidates who fail to enter and they 
must be prepared to defray all their own 
expenses. 

No cadet is permitted to receive money, 
or any other supplies, from his parents, 
or from any person whomsoever, without 
the sanction of the superintendent. A 
most rigid observance of this regulation 
is urged upon all parents and guardians, 
as its violation would make distinctions 
between cadets, which it is the especial 
desire to avoid; the pay of a cadet is suffi¬ 
cient, with proper economy, for his sup¬ 
port. A deposit of $100 must be made, 
on entrance, to cover the cost of outfit 
for uniform. Each cadet must be pro¬ 
vided with specified clothing, toilet ar¬ 
ticles, blankets, etc. 

When any cadet of the United States 
Military Academy has gone through all 
its classes and received a regular diploma 
from the academic staff, he may be pro¬ 
moted and commissioned as a second lieu¬ 
tenant in any arm or corps of the army 
in which there may be a vacancy and the 
duties of which he may have been judged 
competent to perform; and in case there 
shall not at the time be a vacancy in 
such arm or corps, he may, at the discre¬ 
tion of the President, be promoted and 
commissioned in it as an additional second 
lieutenant, with the usual pay and allow¬ 
ances of a second lieutenant, until a 
vacancy shall happen. 





BOOK OF THE TIMES 


222 


NAVAL EDUCATION. 


The students of the Naval Academy are 
styled midshipmen. Two midshipmen 
are allowed for each senator,, representa¬ 
tive and delegate in Congress, two for 
the District of Columbia, and five each 
year from the United States at large. 
The appointments from the District of 
Columbia and five each year at large are 
made by the President. One midshipman 
is allowed from Porto Rico, who must 
be a native of that island. The appoint¬ 
ment is made by the President, on the 
recommendation of the governor of Porto 
Rico. 

The Congressional appointments are 
equitably distributed, so that in regular 
course each senator, representative and 
delegate in Congress may appoint one 
midshipman during each Congress. After 
June 30, 1913, each senator, representa¬ 
tive and delegate in Congress will be al¬ 
lowed to appoint only one midshipman 
instead of two. 

The course for midshipmen is six years 
—four years at the academy, when the 
succeeding appointment is made, and two 
years at sea, at the expiration of which 
time the examination for final graduation 
takes place. Midshipmen who pass the 
examination for final graduation are ap¬ 
pointed to fill vacancies in the lower 
grades of the line of the navy and of the 
Marine Corps, in the order of merit as de¬ 
termined by the Academic Board of the 
Naval Academy. 

METHOD OF NOMINATION. 

The Naval Appropriation Act of 
March 4, 1903, prescribed this method 
of nominations: “The Secretary of the 


Navy shall as soon as practicable after 
the fifth day of March in each year notify 
in writing each Senator, Representative 
and Delegate in Congress of any vacancy 
which may be regarded as existing in the 
state, district or territory which he repre¬ 
sents, and the nomination of a candidate 
to fill such vacancy shall be made upon 
the recommendation of the Senator, Rep¬ 
resentative or Delegate. Such recom¬ 
mendation shall be made by the first day 
of June of that year, and if not so made 
the Secretary of the Navy shall fill the 
vacancy by the appointment of an actual 
resident of the state, district or territory 
in which the vacancy exists, who shall 
have been for at least two years imme¬ 
diately preceding his appointment an 
actual bona fide resident of the state, dis¬ 
trict or territory in which the vacancy ex¬ 
ists and shall have the qualifications other¬ 
wise prescribed by law. 

“And provided further, that the Super¬ 
intendent of the Naval Academy shall 
make such rules, to be approved by the 
Secretary of the Navy, as will effectually 
prevent the practice of hazing; and any 
cadet found guilty of participating in or 
encouraging or countenancing such prac¬ 
tice shall be summarily expelled from the 
academy, arid shall not thereafter be re¬ 
appointed to the corps of cadets or be 
eligible for appointment as a commis¬ 
sioned officer in the army or navy or 
marine corps until two years after the 
graduation of the class of which he was 
a member.” 

Candidates allowed for Congressional 
districts, for territories and for the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia must be actual residents 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 223 


of the districts or territories, respectively, 
from which they are nominated. All can¬ 
didates must, at the time of their exam¬ 
ination for admission, be between sixteen 
and twenty years old. 

CONTRACT ON PAY. 

Before entering the Academy the ap¬ 
pointee must sign an agreement to serve 


in the navy eight years, including his time 
of probation at the Naval Academy, un¬ 
less sooner discharged. 

The pay of a midshipman is $500 a 
year, commencing from the date of ad¬ 
mission. The expenses attending equip¬ 
ment at entrance are $226.35. A P re “ 
liminary deposit of $30 for clothing is 
required on entering the Academy. 


MANUFACTURING PAPER MONEY AND STAMPS. 


The government and the banks, and 
even the postoffices, would be in a hole for 
a time if all the women in the bureau of 
engraving and printing should drop dead 
all at once. That shop would have to 
close up pretty quick. Why, you can't 
even go over there and look around with¬ 
out a woman to show you. All the guides 
to the bureau for the benefit of tourists 
and other ignorant people—which in¬ 
cludes all Washington people, for Wash¬ 
ington people are the most ignorant peo¬ 
ple on earth about Washington institu¬ 
tions—all the guides—and there are seven 
of them—are women, young women and 
pretty women, at that. 

Not so many years ago three decrepit 
old men were the guides. Now the seven 
are women, which is significant, and one 
that typifies the work done in the bureau, 
for here, of the 3,000 employes, more 
than half are of the feminine persuasion. 

These young and good-looking guides 
will explain how American money is 
printed on the back, then put in cold stor¬ 
age, when it goes through a drying proc¬ 
ess; then sorted and imperfect sheets 
thrown out; then printed on the face, and • 
then perforated and put up in packages 
to be sent to the treasury for the gov¬ 
ernment seal. 


TIME REQUIRED IN PRINTING. 

“It is seven days after a bill is printed 
on its back before it is printed on the 
face,” said this visitor’s guide. “It takes 
thirty days to make a silver dollar bill and 
forty to make a gold one. The gold one 
is printed three times, twice on one side, 
because it has to have the word ‘gold’ and 
a little splotch of gold on this side before 
the face can be printed.” 

Then she led the visitor to the framed 
dollar bills fastened to one of the walls 
in the hall, and showed these bills, calling 
special attention to the gold certificate, 
and then led the way back to the front 
door and said adieu. It was all over in 
ten minutes. 

But there is one section of the bureau 
of engraving and printing that the guides 
do not take you through, unless you have 
a special permit. This is where they 
make the postage stamps—the common, 
ordinary postage stamps that you give 
only 2 cents for and stick on your letters 
with a contemptuous lick. But it is the 
most interesting part of the bureau. 

Just think, it takes two days to pro¬ 
duce the plate from which that stamp is 
printed that Uncle Sam allows you to 
have for the insignificant sum of 2 cents! 






224 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


And, what is more, this work is all done 
by skilled artisans. As a general thing, 
three engravers have worked on the pat¬ 
tern that makes the decoration of the 
finished stamp. One, with the edged tool 
of his art, makes the incisions for the 
head. Another does some of the orna¬ 
mental scroll work, and a third com¬ 
pletes what is left to be done. At this 
stage of its manufacture the stamp is 
called a die. 

The process by which this die is trans¬ 
formed to a plate of metal on which it 
is stamped 400 times, and from which the 
sheet of stamps is printed is a matter not 
for the comprehension of the average un¬ 
scientific mind. But, at any rate, this 
transformation occurs, and it is this that 
requires the two days' work. 

There is method in this subdivision of 
the work, besides that of letting each man 
have his specialty. No employe becomes 
proficient in the complete manufacture of 
a stamp, and thus he cannot work over¬ 
time at home making them for his own 
use or for a little industry of his own 
on the side. 

When these plates are taken from the 
engravers, the real work of printing the 
stamps begins. It takes one inanimate 
and three human machines to operate four 
of these plates. A woman is feeder. She 
takes the plate that has been carefully 
polished bv a man who stands at her left 
and lays over this the specially prepared 
paper upon which the stamps are to be 
printed. 

METHOD OF PRINTING. 

She pushes the plate under a roller that, 
by its pressure, transfers the pattern of 
stamp on the plate to the paper. She is 


then ready for the second plate. The girl 
directly opposite her, who can sit down 
at her work, takes the sheet of stamps 
from the plate and pushes the latter under 
another roller of the machine, where it 
is re-inked for another impression. This 
work goes on from 8 o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing until 4 in the afternoon and the ma¬ 
chinery is generally hot. 

In a room above, the sheets of stamps 
receive their coating of glue on the back. 
There are eight electric machines to do 
this work, and each of these requires the 
assistance of three young women. One 
feeds the machine, sending the sheet 
under the roller with its printed side 
downward that the smooth backs may be 
exposed to the drippings of the glue that 
fall from a metal receptacle just over 
the roller. 

Continually moving machinery carries 
the sheet on into the drying box. This 
is 50 feet long and filled with hot air. 
Across the ceiling of this room is a big 
aluminum pipe which connects with these 
boxes by means of perpendicular pipes. 
This is some sort of an apparatus by 
which all the moisture in these boxes is 
drawn out. On an ordinarily cool sum¬ 
mer day the atmosphere of this room is 
100 degrees Fahrenheit. 

By the time you have followed this 
drying process the length of these fifty 
feet you reach the other end of the room, 
where the two other women assistants are 
at work. One of these takes the sheets 
from the machine and the other makes 
a neat pile of them. At a table in one cor¬ 
ner of this room sit the counters, who in¬ 
spect all work before it is allowed to go 
out into the next room, where it is per¬ 
forated. 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 225 


USE OF THE MACHINES. 

Each machine in the perforating room 
requires two girls for its operation. One 
of them works the machine with her foot. 
When she sends a sheet through the ma¬ 
chine it is perforated and cut in two sec¬ 
tions. In another machine these halves 
are cut in two, thus quartering the orig¬ 
inal sheet. These quarters of the orig¬ 
inal sheet are put up into packages of 
from ioo to 500 sheets, or from 1.000 to 
5,000 stamps, and sent direct to post- 
offices all over the country. 

Before the days of rural delivery 77,000 
postoffices were served daily. But this 
improvement in the mail service has cut 
the number down to 74,000. The number 
of stamps sent out daily is 15,000,000. 
When you hold up to the light a sheet of 
paper on which the stamps are printed, it 
shows a water mark consisting of the 
letters “U. S. P. S.” Over each of these 
letters a stamp is printed. 

It is sometimes said that the young 
woman who holds a government position 
knows nothing of really hard work when 
she labors only from 9 to 4:30, has a 
month’s vacation with pay in the summer 
time, and is allowed one month during 
the course of the year in which to remain 
at home on account of illness. In con¬ 
trast to her, the stenographer in a private 
institution or the clerk in a store is cited, 
the latter having to work much longer 


hours, and, as a general thing, receiving 
a lower salary. 

If this is.true of some government 
clerks, the condition is certainly over¬ 
balanced by the young women who spend 
their working days at the Bureau of 
Printing and Engraving. The hours are 
from 8 to 4, but that is quite long enough 
considering the nature of the work done 
there. 

During those hours the clerks sit at 
machines puffing out heat and fumes of 
impurity. On the floor where the money 
is printed each machine is operated by 
both men and women. The women hand 
out the sheets and take them again after 
they have been through the printing proc¬ 
ess. They do not have actually to touch 
the machines, but they cannot keep out 
of all contact with the printer’s ink and 
grease that is all around them, and they 
are all day long in an atmosphere of 
heat, intensified by the row of gas stoves 
between the machines. 

The girls who work at the machines in 
other parts of the building can vary the 
monotony of their work by first sitting 
down to it and then standing up. And 
when there are two girls at one machine 
they can alternate at each other’s posts, 
and in this way distribute their aches and 
pains to both sides of their bodies. But 
man-made machines, though automati¬ 
cally run, are grinding affairs and de¬ 
mand constant attention. 


HOW THE GOVERNMENT COINS MONEY. 

The round metal disks, properly shaped tally and visible, are a pair of long, flat, 
to the right size, are dropped into a tube fingerlike grippers which close on the 
that is exactlv designed to receive them, lowermost disk with a click. The fingers 
At the base of the tube, sliding horizon- then slide inward about six inches and re- 




BOOK OF THE TIMES 



A machine in the government service that counts and wraps twenty-five thousand coins 

in an hour. 
























GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 227 


lease their burden, depositing it precisely 
in a certain spot with an accuracy that 
reckons within a hair’s breadth. 

Then the fingers retreat. At the in¬ 
stant two peculiar-looking great bulbs of 
steel, which the wise ones call a “toggle 
joint,” wabble together, and down from 
above with 160 tons pressure comes the 
die. Below is another die or stamp, the 
reverse side, behind which also is fabu¬ 
lous power. To the thousandth of a sec¬ 
ond, the one meets the other. The im¬ 
pressions of the lettering and figures are 
made upon the disk. It is not mashed, 
because it is contained by a “collar,” pres¬ 
sure against which serves another pur¬ 
pose, in that the milling of the edges that 
we note upon all coins is accomplished. 

THE COINING MACHINE. 

Beyond a doubt, a coining machine is 
a most “intelligent” mechanical device. 
The click, click, goes on like the tick¬ 
ing of a clock; the fingers pick up coin 
after coin, never missing, never fumbling, 
never stopping, doing business at the rate 
of eighty a minute. Twenty-dollar gold 
pieces can be turned out at this rate, mak¬ 
ing $1,600 a minute. 

And it is an ugly looking brute of a 
mechanism to exhibit such a remarkable 
—prescience, shall we call it? A great, 
heavy, enormously heavy and bulbous 
mass of cast iron girds the whole affair. 
In the middle, somewhat as the head of 
the turtle sticks out from the shell, pro¬ 
trudes the slender framework which 
p-uides the “hands.” In slides the frame; 

O 

shut go the fingers. Out slides the 
frame; open come the fingers. Each time 
a coin is stamped. Watch this awhile 


and you begin to feel somewhat queer—■ 
the thing is almost uncanny. 

The main prongs, or the “wrists” of 
the hands, are attached to short bars, 
which, in turn, are attached loosely to 
other bars—the ones that have the in- 
and-out motion. Now, the hand part is 
supported upon a block of brass, which 
moves with the sliders, but rests upon 
strips of wood. The brass, rubbing on 
the wood, retards the motion, so that the 
brass block, with its attached prongs, 
tends to move more slowly than the slid¬ 
ers. The retarding causes the fingers first 
to grip and then to release the coins. 

STORY OF THE MINT. 

In 1795 the United States having 
blossomed out into full-fledged compan¬ 
ionship with the nations of the world. 
Uncle Sam foresaw the necessity of pos¬ 
sessing a mint. 

The old apparatus is a turn-the-crank 
affair, and looks like it might be an apple 
press or something equally rustic. But 
the contrast vividly tells the story of one 
hundred odd years. 

Hardly less absorbing than the coining 
is each of the numerous steps through 
which our metal money passes. Four or 
five thousand ounces of gold, silver or 
copper are melted at a time in a naphtha 
furnace, which generates 1900 units of 
heat and which roars like a tornado. The 
liquid, lifted out in cups, is poured into 
molds and comes out in sticks about a 
foot long, one-half inch thick and one 
inch wide. 

The sticks are then compressed in a de¬ 
vice which requires fifty-horsepower to 
operate it. They are run through the 
press time and again to secure an exact 







228 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


thickness, which must be, in the case of 
double eagles, not a jot more nor less 
than eighty-three one-thousandths of an 
inch. By an infinitely delicate gauge—a 
“clock” it is called—the thickness can be 
regulated up to a thousandth of an inch. 
The accuracy is necessary in order that 
the strips from which the coins are to be 
made shall be of a uniform weight 
throughout their entire length; in other 
words, that a $20 piece have in it exactly 
$20 worth of gold. 

The pressing hardens the metal. The 
strips then must have the first annealing 
process, which softens the gold. This 
means passing them under a spray of cold 
water. Now, all is ready for punching. 
The strips pass under a punch which is 
capable of 180 punches a minute, each 
punch resulting in a disk of precisely the 
correct diameter. 

The punching frays the edges the least 
bit. This is remedied in what is termed 


the “up-setting machine.” The term is 
simply a practical expression of what the 
device does; it turns over these rough¬ 
ened edges and also creates the little bor¬ 
der or circle of indentations which we 
note at the edges upon both sides of every 
silver or gold coin. 

The punching has again hardened the 
coin beyond its desired consistency. The 
seventh step of its manufacture, then, is 
a second annealing. From the “annealing 
cylinder” it comes out, if gold, a dull 
brown or blackish color. 

Uncle Sam's new double eagles must 
shine with an undimmed luster, and the 
eighth process is a cleansing apparatus 
which cleans by the oxidization of the 
copper or the alloy metal. After cleans¬ 
ing, the coins must be dried; and a spe¬ 
cial device, as intricate as any drier in 
any laundry, is designed to accomplish 
this purpose. Dried, they are ready for 
the coiner. 


SIGNALS OF THE SEA. 


Among those objects that instantly find 
the eye upon entering any exhibit of gov¬ 
ernment works are the huge globular de¬ 
vices of tiered strips of fine glass, in which 
the sunlight breaks into many miniature 
rainbows for the equipment of Uncle 
Sam’s lighthouses. Exactly such com¬ 
plicated lamp-lenses are important feat¬ 
ures of the beacons which are both the 
seaman’s safety and a valuable insurance 
to our merchant marine. 

But they do represent a practical ap¬ 
plication of scientific discoveries concern¬ 
ing the nature of light rays. By the con¬ 
centration of the light, by its refraction 
from one glass plane to another, it finally 


is projected through a bull's-eye, intensi¬ 
fied in some cases 200 per cent. 

In a lamp of the “second order,” which 
burns kerosene and has 480-candle power, 
the flashes which warn the sailor far out 
at sea possess 182,000-candle power. In 
a lamp of the “third order,” a kerosene 
flame of 240-candle power becomes mag¬ 
nified to 65,000-candle power. In a lamp 
of the “first order,” for which the central 
light is furnished by electricity, the re¬ 
sultant candle power—one such light 
shines out from the New Jersey coast— 
amounts to 385,000-candle power. The 
degrees of intensity are signified by this 
word “order” in lighthouse terminology, 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 229 


and they form a descending scale down 
to those having only a few thousand can¬ 
dle power. 

In their form the lamps are many-sided, 
cylindrical. In general character nearly 
all are alike, varying only in size, except¬ 
ing the few in which electricity is used. 

One division among them can be made, 
however, as between those designed to 
provide a continuous light and those that 
are flash lights. 

CONTINUOUS LIGHTS. 

The example of a continuous light is 
one of the largest in use, and with a lamp 
of 480-candle power it projects rays of 
8,000-candle power. At the centre of its 
sheath is a belt of glass thicker and wider 
than the others, and at which the highest 
luminosity is secured. Above and below, 
encircling the lamp, are series of long 
triangular prisms, each set at a slightly 
different angle, so that the light rays 
striking upon them are reflected into the 
main belt of the glass, where they are 
given the final horizontal projection. To 
obtain such results, it will be readily un¬ 
derstood that the nicest care and calcula¬ 
tion is required in placing the glass strips. 

The problem seems complicated enough 
when applied to a light such as that just 
described. But, with the flash or bull's 
eye lamps, the mathematical difficulties 
are almost infinitely multiplied. Every 
single light ray thrown off by the lamps 
is carried through a series of refractions, 
bounding from one surface to another, 
until all are hurled forth together from 
the narrow radius of the bull’s-eye. 

“Captain,” you ask, “is not an 8,000- 
-andle power lamp, such as this, visible 


just as far out at sea as a 182,000-candle 
power one?” 

“Yes, in good weather,” he answers. 
“But one is brighter than the other, and 
will show up better at a distance. The 
electric light, of course, is the strongest, 
but it is not so good in a fog. But when 
you come down to it, none of them are 
much use in a fog. Our warning then is 
chiefly the steam siren; but they even fail 
of perfect service, since they may be heard 
at a distance and not heard closer in, as 
the sound ricochets; they are confusing. 

THE SUBMARINE BELL. 

“A new invention, now being tried, 
seems to promise better than anything 
we have found. It is a submarine bell, 
which works automatically, and the 
strokes of which are registered by means 
of an apparatus on shipboard. I think 
that the only hope of a sure means of fog 
signaling lies in some submarine device.” 

“How about the flash lights? What is 
the object in having them?” 

“A flash attracts attention; it is quickly 
seen, though I think that the fixed light, 
judging from my own experience, gives 
the sailor the greater sense of security. 
The main purpose of the flashes is to af¬ 
ford a means of identifying the various 
lighthouses along the coast. For in¬ 
stance, the light at Cape Cod gives two 
half-second flashes, and then there is an 
interim of five seconds. The light on the 
Massachusetts coast is a fifteen-second 
flash every ninety seconds. Any captain 
at sea knowing the lighthouse code takes 
the time of the flashes and he immediate¬ 
ly is informed of his whereabouts.” 

The adjustment of the flashes is accom¬ 
plished both by the arrangement of the 





230 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


lenses, and by a clock-work device that 
turns the entire lamp around. 

A lamp such as that at Cape Cod has 
iwo bull’s eyes, close together, while it 
has the glass prisms upon only one side. 
The other side is cut off with opaque cur¬ 
tains. Consequently, as the whole ap¬ 
paratus turns, the light can he seen only 
when a hull's eye comes within the line of 


vision. The two eyes are just at that dis¬ 
tance apart and are turning at just that 
speed which permits each flash to con¬ 
tinue a half-second, and which causes the 
two flashes to follow one another after a 
half-second interval. The five-second in¬ 
terval occurs while the opaque side is fac¬ 
ing the sea. 


GOVERNMENT EDUCATION OF THE INDIAN. 


Nine million one hundred and seventy- 
two thousand two hundred and seventy- 
three dollars and ten cents was the 
amount of money expended last year by 
the Indian Bureau of the Interior De¬ 
partment. Three million one hundred 
and sixty-one .thousand four hundred and 
eighty-three dollars and sixty-one cents 
was expended in the support of the In¬ 
dian schools. There were 257 schools in 
operation, and enrolled in all of these 
schools were 24,357 pupils, with an aver¬ 
age attendance of 20,876. There were 
employed 2,282 persons, of which num¬ 
ber hi were superintendents. All of 
these people have either been in the In¬ 
dian service for a long period or were ap¬ 
pointed through the medium of the classi¬ 
fied Indian civil service. 

For the general supervision of these 
schools five supervisors were appointed. 
They visit every school in the district as¬ 
signed to them two or three times each 
year, going thoroughly into the capacity 
and effective industry of the personnel of 
the school, the character and efficiency of 
the superintendent, and the moral condi¬ 
tions pertaining to the institution. Aside 
from these supervisors there are five 
special agents and seven inspectors who 


look into the general conduct of the 
schools. 

The Indian question is divided into two 
distinct phases. One, that the American 
Indian shall remain in the country as a 
survival of the aboriginal inhabitants, a 
study for the ethnologist, a toy for the 
tourist, and a continual pensioner upon 
the bounty of the people; the other, that 
he shall be educated to work, live, and 
act as a reputable, moral citizen, and thus 
become a self-supporting, useful member 
of society. 

VALUE OF EDUCATION. 

To educate the Indian in the ways of 
civilized life is to preserve him from ex¬ 
tinction, not as an Indian, but as a human 
being. As a separate entity he can not 
exist. The pressure for land must dimin¬ 
ish his reservation to areas within which 
he can utilize the acres alloted to him, 
so that the balance may become homes 
for white farmers. To educate the In¬ 
dian is to prepare him for the abolishment 
of tribal relations, to take his land in sev¬ 
eralty, and in the sweat of his brow and 
by the toil of his hands to carve out a 
home for himself and family. 

Practical education is what he most 




GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 231 


needs—the knowledge of how to make 
a living, even under adverse circum¬ 
stances. The first step is the acquirement 
of the English language. Without it he 
is powerless to transact intelligently the 
ordinary affairs of life, to dispose of the 
products of his farm, or the increase of 
his herds. Indian schools are. therefore, 
limited in text-book instruction to the or¬ 
dinary common school branches. 

It is argued that the Indian should be 
taught the rudiments of the language, 
taught to work, and sent home with the 
understanding that he must work or 
starve. Officials who have studied the 
question say that this system will, in a 
generation or two, regenerate the race. It 
will exterminate the Indian, but will de¬ 
velop the man. They say, protect him 
only in so far that he may gain confidence 
in himself, and let nature and civilized 
conditions do the rest. 

IMPROVEMENT IN THE 
SCHOOLS. 

The Indian school of the present is not 
what it was a generation ago. Mistakes 
are being corrected, and, while the sys¬ 
tem is still imperfect, the schools are 
striving hard to raise the Indian char¬ 
acter and prepare the young generation 
for the time when the parental hand of 
the government must be taken away. 

The question as to what will become of 
the children of the five civilized tribes in 
the Indian Territory is bothering the offi¬ 
cials in the interior department, and it 
is not unlikely that, in the near future, 
some plan will be adopted for their future 
education. Within the next three years, 
under the agreements, tribal government 
must cease, their affairs be settled up. and 


the tribal funds be distributed pro rata. 
Under present laws, public schools can 
be organized only in incorporated cities 
and towns. For the rural districts and 
many towns no adequate public school 
system can be established for the Indians 
and whites. With tribal government ex¬ 
tinguished and money distributed to the 
Indians per capita, the question arises as 
to where the money will come from to 
support Indian schools. These nations 
are now rich, but it is a question whether 
they will be ten years hence. The status 
of the thousands of negro children is also 
of importance. They are now in separate 
schools in the Cherokee and Creek na¬ 
tions, but the Choctaw and Chickasaw 
nations do not permit them to share- in 
their school fund. 

THE MOST ADVANCED OF THE 
INDIANS. 

The Indians of the Cherokee nation are 
probably the most enlightened of the five 
civilized tribes. Last year 160 teachers 
were employed in their primary schools. 
The Cherokees came from Georgia and 
vicinity, and settled on lands patented to 
them in 1840. It is an interesting fact 
that before the adjoining states were 
taken into the Union, these people had 
adopted a constitution making officials 
elective, abolishing polygamy and recog¬ 
nizing the Christian religion, and had 
passed strict temperance laws. They were 
the first Indian tribe to establish a free 
public school system. Missionaries were 
welcome, a native alphabet was adopted, 
and a printing press and newspaper were 
established by the nation. Separate 
schools are maintained for Indians and 
negroes. The Cherokees and negroes do 




232 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


not intermarry or socially mingle. The 
total enrollment in the Cherokee schools 
last year was 6,187, with an average at¬ 
tendance of 3,641. The annual cost was 
$110,818. 

A large percentage of the Creeks are 
full-blood Indians. They have nine small 
boarding schools, six of which are exclu¬ 
sively for Creek children, the remaining 
three admitting negroes. The total en¬ 
rollment for the past year was 2,557, 
with an average attendance of 1,350, the 
cost of maintaining which amounted to 

$ 73 - 358 - 

The Choctaw nation is larger. They 
have ten small boarding schools, in which 
447 Choctaw children are educated and 
supported, and 175 day schools, in which 
3,068 Choctaw children are being edu¬ 
cated. The cost of maintaining these 
schools amounted last year to $119,561. 

The Chickasaw nation falls far short 
of the showing made by the other nations. 
The Chickasaws are still allowed to con¬ 
trol their own expenditures for school 
purposes. Their council makes no 
appropriation for school purposes at 
the beginning of the year, but per¬ 
mits their school authorities to con¬ 
tinue incurring indebtedness, regard¬ 
less of their ability to pay. Another ex¬ 
travagant feature is apparent in their at¬ 
tempt to pay the board of all the children 
enrolled in their day schools. In many 
instances parents are allowed from $10 to 


$12 a month per child, for hoarding their 
own children. This nation has an average 
enrollment of 1,193, and an average at¬ 
tendance of 872. It required last year 
$110,750. A comparison of figures shows 
that the Chickasaws expended $110,750 
upon the education of 1.193 children, 
while in the Choctaw nation but $119,561 
was expended upon the education of 3.998 
children. 

But the conditions which surround an 
Indian school are materially different from 
those of the ordinary white public school. 
Children in white institutions learning us¬ 
ually come from homes where every moral 
influence is thrown around them, where 
their own inherited tendencies are fostered 
for the uplifting of moral character. 
They are encouraged by parents, asso¬ 
ciates and friends, and are thus by nature 
and environment, as well as by inherit¬ 
ance, stronger to resist temptation than 
are the Indian children. Pupils in Indian 
schools are generally kept in these insti¬ 
tutions for 24 hours of the day, 10 months 
a year. The other two months in the year 
they are returned to their homes in the 
camp, where they are surrounded by their 
own people. 

Secretary Hitchcock is endeavoring to 
bring the Indian schools up to the same 
standard and to throw around the Indian 
student the same moral influence as is 
given to the children in the homes and 
schools of the white children. 


NEGRO POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The United States contains the great- than three per cent, are in this continent 
est number of negroes of any country or within the boundaries of the Union as 
outside of Africa—about nine and a quar- they stood before our insular accessions, 
ter millions. Of these, all except less and nearly nine-tenths of these continen- 





“Despised and Rejected of Men.” 

Sigismund Goetze’s vision of Christ crucified before modern society upon an altar erected 

“To the Unknown God.’’ 

























234 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tal negroes are in the Southern States, 
and more than three-tenths in the three 
States of Georgia, Mississippi and Ala¬ 
bama. 

In from one-ninth to one-sixth of the 
negroes there is some measure of white 
blood; but the statistics as to this mat¬ 
ter cannot be regarded as accurate, for 
the fact of the mixture of blood is not 
easily obtainable by enumerators. Trust¬ 
worthy, however, is the conclusion that 
this admixture, as determined, is most 
prevalent where the negroes, proportion¬ 
ately to the whites, are fewest, and least 
where they are most numerous. For ex¬ 
ample : In South Carolina, where nearly 
three-fifths of the total population is 
negro, there is the smallest percentage of 
white admixture; and in Mississippi, 
where the negroes are nearly as numerous, 
the admixture is very slight proportion¬ 
ately. In Maine, where in a total popu¬ 
lation of nearly seven hundred thousand 
there were only 1.319 negroes in 1900, 
the mulattoes were about three-fifths. In 
South Carolina, where there were nearlv 
eight hundred thousand negroes, the pro¬ 
portion of mulattoes was less than a tenth. 

The Northern States where negroes are 
most numerous are these : 

Negroes, 1900. 


Pennsylvania .156,845 

New York . 99,232 

Ohio . 96,901 

Illinois . 85,078 

New Jersey. 69,844 

Indiana . 57 > 5°5 

Kansas . 52,003 

Massachusetts . 31,974 

Michigan . 1 5,5i^S 

Connecticut . 15,226 


About two-thirds of the negroes are en¬ 


gaged in agriculture, the remainder in 
many other occupations. 

This list of certain employments in 
which negroes were engaged in 1900 is 


interesting and suggestive: 

Teachers and professors . 21,268 

Carpenters and joiners . 21,114 

Barbers . 19,942 

Clergymen . I5>53° 

Masons . 14,387 

Dressmakers . 12,572 

Engineers and firemen. 10,227 

Blacksmiths . 10,104 

Boot and shoe makers. 4>574 

Musicians and teachers of music. 3.921 

Actors and showmen. 2,043 

Physicians and surgeons . 1,734 

Lawyers . 728 

Bookkeepers and accountants. . . 475 

Stenographers and typewriters. . 395 

Artists and teachers of art. 236 

Dentists . 212 

Commercial travellers . 187 

Electricians . 185 

Architects . 52 


It is interesting to note that from 1890 
to 1900 negro clergymen increased more 
rapidly than white: negro 27.7 per cent., 
or from 12,159 to 1 5,5 2 S, and white from 
75,972 to 94,437, or 24.3 per cent. 
Among the negroes the proportion of 
clergymen in the population is more than 
among the whites. For each 100,000 ne¬ 
groes there were 171 clergymen, to 141 
for the whites. In the South the propor¬ 
tions are 160 negro and 129 white. In 
the North the relative number of negro 
preachers is much greater. 

In 32 of the cities of the Union there 
were more than 10,000 negroes in 1900, 
and their aggregate negro population was 
nearly a million. Washington was the 






























GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 235 


city with the largest negro population. 
It had about seven thousand more than 
Baltimore and nine thousand more than 
New Orleans, the greatest of the South¬ 
ern cities. With the exception of those 
cities, Philadelphia, with 62,613, and 
New York, with 60,666, had more ne¬ 
groes than any Southern city. In New 
York were nearly twice as many negroes 
as in Richmond; and, we may add, the 
Virginians in New York, white and 
negro, were equal in number to more 
than a quarter of the whole population 
of the Virginia capital. The percentage 
of negroes to the population, of course, 
is far greater in the Southern cities. In 

THE RACE 

Rev. Mr. Kirbye, president of the At¬ 
lanta Congregational Theological Semi¬ 
nary, says: “You hear it constantly 
that two races can occupy the same ter¬ 
ritory and mutually sustain themselves. 
But that is not the lesson of history. 
Three things have happened when races 
have come together. If there has been 
little difference in temperament, color of 
skin and aspirations, amalgamation has 
taken place. This is one solution. If 
one is greatly inferior in civilization and 
the disparity in color of skin is marked, 
it has resulted in the destruction of the 
weaker. The bow and arrow has never 
been the match of the shotgun. And 
the third solution is separation. 

“Can we learn a lesson as to our rela¬ 
tions and duty to the American negro? 

I have always pleaded for the qualities of 
justice and brotherhood. But I stand 
here and anywhere to say that the amal¬ 
gamation of the negro and the white man 
of this country is an impossibility. That 


Charleston and Savannah they are more 
than half. 

Nine-tenths of the negroes, but only 
one-fourth of the whites of the Union, 
lived in the South in 1900 In the North 
the negro is about as pre-eminently an 
inhabitant of a city as in the South he is 
of the country. 

From the civil war to 1900 the negro 
population of the Union about doubled, 
or in exact figures, increased from 4,441,- 
830 in i860 to 8,833,994 in 1900. In 
the Southern States distinctively the in¬ 
crease was from 4,097,111 in i860 to 
7,922,969 in 1900. 

PROBLEM. 

is agreed. Second, the negro cannot be 
destroyed. He has imbibed too much of 
our civilization, and the leverage of lead¬ 
ership from his race will save him from 
the fate of the American Indian. But so 
long as large numbers of black people 
live in the same communities with white 
people, there will be criminality, conflict¬ 
ing interests and race riot. No section 
can be so pharisaical now as to say that 
it is the exception. 

WAY TO SAVE THE NEGRO. 

“The Christian thing to do is to sep¬ 
arate the races if you would save the 
negro. I do not advocate deportation 
to Africa, but I do think that the masses 
of them could be segregated in some speci¬ 
fied area to the mutual advantage of all 
concerned. The government of the 
United States could set apart by purchase 
an area of territory in the southern and 
southwestern part of the country to be 
known as the Negro State. It should he 




236 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


impossible for the white man to do busi¬ 
ness within it, or exercise the rights of 
citizenship. 

“There would be no danger of inter¬ 
ference from the white man if he could 
not do business within the state or hold 
office. The negro would then be given 
the fullest opportunity of developing his 
race life. He could occupy the same re¬ 
lation to the general government as a 
state. This segregation is not an impos¬ 
sibility. It is the only hope for the negro. 
The present conditions in this country 
emphasize the fact that the negro can 
never expect the fullest social and politi¬ 
cal recognition from the white man. We 
cannot give it and save ourselves. 

“Christian philanthropy, education and 
the example of the white man saved 
him from barbarism and have given him 
a leadership that equips him to battle for 
his race life in our American democracy. 
We can aid him in this struggle only as 
we encourage segregation which will give 
him the fullest opportunity of struggling 
against environment and those inherent 
tendencies that seek to drag him down.” 

A REPLY. 

Segregation is approved by Rev. J. Ed¬ 
ward Kirbye, president of the Atlanta 

MOBS AND 

A writer in an English magazine a few 
years ago had occasion to make the fol¬ 
lowing observations: “More than 1,000 
men and women have been lynched in the 
United States during the last ten years. 
Mob violence is spreading. It is not con¬ 
fined to the district south of Mason and 
Dixon’s line. New York State and the 
Quaker State have suffered the mob to 


Theological Seminary, as the solution of 
the race problem, and he anticipates an 
obvious objection by declaring that it is 
not impossible. Nevertheless, it seems to 
call for more than one expedient that is 
clearly impossible. First, there must be 
compulsion, and neither state nor federal 
government has the right to order the 
negro out of one place and into another. 
Second, if Mr. Kirbye’s plan were fol¬ 
lowed there would be need of a new state 
establishment, in which it would be im¬ 
possible for the white man to do business 
or exercise the right of citizenship. This 
is another impossibility. Third, it would 
be necessary to exercise a power over 
property that is not*found in governments 
or individuals in order to carve out the 
requisite territory, and this also is im¬ 
possible. 

Manifestly, therefore, the scheme 
would not work, though it is suggested 
in all sincerity. That it is thus sincerely 
proposed, and that, too, by a southern 
religious teacher, is indicative of the des¬ 
peration to which the problem has reduced 
men’s minds in the South. They are 
simply grasping at chimeras with the 
idea of getting rid of the negro, when 
the most that they can do is to assist in 
his moral and mental development. 

LYNCHERS. 

murder blacks within their borders, and 
have made no effort to punish the lynch¬ 
ers. In 1882 there were 52 negroes mur¬ 
dered by the mob; in 1892 there were 
160. Last year (1893) the number must 
have reached 200. In South Carolina last 
year there were thirteen lynched; in 
Georgia sixteen, in Alabama twenty- 
seven. The atrocities perpetrated during 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 237 


the present year justify the opinion that 
if the remaining eight months maintain 
the record of the opening four months of 
the year, 1894 will stand out as the worst 
year, in point of numbers and blood¬ 
thirstiness, since die days of the Kuklux. 

“Of these men and women who have 
been put to death without judge or jury, 
less than one-third of them have been 
even accused of criminal assault. The 
world at large has accepted without ques¬ 
tion the statement that negroes are 
lynched only for assaults upon white wo¬ 
men. Of those who were lynched from 
1882 to 1891, the first ten years of the 
tabulated record, 269 were charged with 
rape, 253 with murder, 44 with robbery, 
37 with incendiarism, 4 with burglary, 
27 with race prejudice, 13 quarrelled with 
white men, 10 with making threats, 7 
with rioting, 5 with miscegenation; in 
32 cases no reason was given, the victims 
were lynched on general principles. 

CHARGED WITH VARIOUS 
CRIMES. 

“Of the 171 persons lynched in 1895 
only 34 were charged with criminal as¬ 
sault; in 1896, out of 131 persons who 
were lynched, only 34 were said to have 
assaulted women; of the 156 lynched in 
1897, only 32 were so charged; in 1898, 
out of 127 persons lynched, 24 were 
charged with the alleged ‘usual crime; 
in 1899, of the 107 lynchings, 16 were 
said to be for crimes against women.” 

PUBLIC OPINION RESPONSIBLE. 

It has been intimated that there is a 
growing want of respect for the legally 
constituted authorities in this country. It 
is argued that the statistics submitted jus¬ 
tify the making of this claim. The in¬ 


crease in the number of homicides, an¬ 
nually, during the last decade, and the 
decrease in the number of convictions for 
the same, through the courts, go far to 
sustain that claim. The increasing fre¬ 
quency of the reign of Judge Lynch, prac¬ 
tically unmolested, also sustains the same 
view. The adoption of exceedingly cruel 
and unusual methods of punishment by 
the mob, as that of burning the defense¬ 
less victims, still further confirms the law¬ 
less tendencies of the times. These con¬ 
ditions would not, could not, exist if pub¬ 
lic opinion did not assure immunity from 
adequate punishment to the murderous 
hordes who participate in these lawless 
and brutal proceedings. We cannot escape 
the conclusion that the reign of lawless¬ 
ness is securing a firm hold in this coun¬ 
try, is upon us with a strong and relent¬ 
less grip. 

The attorney general of the United 
States, in a recent report to congress, says 
that in the last twelve years the number 
of homicides in this country has risen 
from 4,000 to 10,500 per annum; that of 
the number represented by the last figures, 
in round numbers, 100 were convicted of 
murder by the courts, and 240 were exe¬ 
cuted by lynch law. In some of the states 
this proportion is less; in others it stands 
three lynchings to one conviction for 
homicide and rape. 

THE TERRIBLE RESULT. 

The worst thing about these burnings, 
these illegal killings, whether they take 
place in the North or the South, is the 
dreadful effect upon the minds of the 
lynchers themselves—especially upon the 
children. 

It has taken thousands of years for men 
to rise from utter savagery to compara- 




238 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tive civilization. It takes blit very few state when the murderer butchers his vie- 
years—or only a few weeks—for the tim. But a greater crime is committed 
civilized veneer to come off—for the man when the civilizing work and influences 
to become the savage once more. of years are destroyed through the mur- 

A great crime is committed against the der committed by the mob. 

NOVEL TEMPERANCE MOVEMENTS. 


The Gothenherg system of liquor re¬ 
striction, which has been successful in 
Sweden for many years, is being copied 
to some extent by the Central Public 
House Trust Association in England, the 
purpose of which is to lessen the enor¬ 
mous British expenditure on liquor, which 
amounts to about $540,000,000 a year. 
The association operates by organizing 
local trust companies all over the coun¬ 
try, which shall manage public houses, 
known as Trust Houses, where there shall 
he no inducement to push the sale of in¬ 
toxicants as against other drinks, and 
where the conditions under which intoxi¬ 
cants are sold shall be the healthiest pos¬ 
sible in every way, physical and moral. 

At the head of the association is Earl 
Grey, the Bishop of Chester, Air. Cham¬ 
berlain and various well-known men are 
vice-presidents. 

Stockholders in the association are not 
to receive dividends of more than five per 
cent: all surplus profits are to be spent 
on local improvements. 

The Trust Houses will sell food and 
non-intoxicating drinks, and the terms of 
their franchises are such as to render it 
useless to press the sale of intoxicants as 
against the temperate beverages or the 
food, every house being in charge of a 
manager, who is paid a fixed salary with 
a commission on all non-intoxicants sold. 
There is no obligation to sell any one 
brewer's 1 eer or any one distiller's spirits. 


The association has grown rapidly. At 
the end of 1901 there were 406 subscrib¬ 
ing members; in March last, 820. Under 
trust management in the same month were 
130 houses, an increase during one year 
of forty-eight. Only poor English coun¬ 
tries are without Trust Houses. The class 
of customers at these places is very much 
better than that at the regular public 
houses. 

ANOTHER EXPERIMENT. 

In July, 1904, Bishop Potter, Protes¬ 
tant Episcopal of New York, gave his en¬ 
dorsement and sanctioned by his presence 
the opening of a saloon there according to 
his own plans as a model for improved 
drinking places. It is a club-house for the 
middle classes where the use of intoxicat¬ 
ing liquors is to be severely in restraint 
and non-intoxicating beverage brought as 
much into use as possible. A storm of 
criticism being aroused, he made the fol¬ 
lowing explanation in self-defense: 

“My controversy is simply with those 
who have no other aim in dealing with a 
mischievous institution than to suppress 
it, whereas the only hope of reform here 
is in displacement by substitution. 

“And thus, among ourselves, the breach 
has been widened. On the one side have 
stood those who. feeling keenly a great 
evil, have not always been wise in the 
choice of the instrument with which they 
have fought, and who have erred, most 
of all, in imputing unworthy motives and 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 239 


hurling anathemas against others who 
differed with them. 

“It is hardly necessary to say that tem¬ 
perance reform, as it has most actively 
obtained in this country, has not obtained 


mated, when we remember the enormous 
pecuniary capital represented by the liquor 
traffic, there has been a large class which 
has honestly dissented from those lead¬ 
ing positions of total abstinence and legal 



How the Chinese deal with the Chunchuses: A scene in the prison yard at Mukden. These 
Chur.chuses, who have been taken prisoners, are nominally awaiting trial. In the 
meantime they are being tortured. The man in the foreground has his arms strung 
up for hours at a time, partially crucified. The other man has a rope round his tem¬ 
ples, which is constantly being tightened. These men were captured by the Russians 
and’handed over to the Chinese judicial authorities. 


either universal sympathy or general co¬ 
operation. Besides those whose interests 
have made them hostile to it, and whose 
number can only be inadequately esti- 


prohibition upon which the temperance 
reform has been usually conditional. 

“They have resented prohibition as an 
undue interference with personal liberty, 



























24-0 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


and they have disowned total abstinence 
as irrational, ascetic and even unscrip- 
tural. 

FORMER TEMPERANCE MOVE¬ 
MENTS. 

“To have urged the importance of tem¬ 
perance reform in England twenty years 
ago would have been, in many quarters, to 
provoke a smile, and, oftener than a smile, 
a sneer. But English ecclesiastics, Eng¬ 
lishmen of rank, English statesmen and 
men of the learned professions have been 
aroused at length to a more intelligent 
appreciation of the situation. 

“By means of coffee houses and cab¬ 
men's shelters and reading rooms and 
club rooms they have made a bid for the 
patronage of those men and women of the 
laboring classes who first built the gin 
palaces of England by their wages and 
then supported them by their vices. 

“And it is no exaggeration to say that 
nothing which has occurred during the 
century has done more to restore to the 
church of England the sympathy of the 
common people and the friendship and re¬ 
spect of the multitudes who are not of her 
fold than the organization and work of 
the Church of England Temperance 
Society. 

“Founded in no narrow spirit of intol¬ 
erant proscription, it has welcomed men 
to its fellowship whether they were total 
abstainers or non-abstainers. It bas been 
content to point men to the admitted evils 
of national intemperance, and then to as¬ 
sociate them in practical measures for 
their diminution. 

“It has not assumed to say that those 
measures could only be of one kind, nor 
that intemperance could be dealt with in 
only one way. It has seen that reform is 


a principle which may have many illustra¬ 
tions and may employ most dissimilar 
agencies. And today the future of Eng¬ 
land and of English homes is just so 
much brighter because wise and large- 
hearted men have joined together in be¬ 
half of the work of temperance reform. 

“When we come to deal with those 
among whom intemperance most widely 
and largely obtains we can do something 
to protect them from the harpies who prey 
upon their labor, and whose unlicensed 
gains are a curse and a dishonor to the 
community that permits them. 

“If any of us claim to be the friends of 
moderation let us see whether something 
cannot be done to restrain a traffic whose 
utterly immoderate and unchastened ag¬ 
gressions threaten the very foundation of 
the State and the peace and order of so¬ 
ciety itself. 

“There is a drink evil, and you and I 
must not ignore it. There is 'a task for 
Christian men and women to perform, 
and you and I must not shirk it. But let 
us begin by trying to recognize the facts, 
and then let us deal with them in a way 
worthy of their portentous significance. 

“The saloon or gin palace, whether it 
exists here or in Liverpool or Manches¬ 
ter, has for its most determined enemies 
thos'e who never use it, and, as a rule, 
know nothing about it. I doubt whether 
their assaults upon it and their pictures 
of what its influence has been and is have 
ever had the slightest effect upon those 
whom they desired to reach. 

CLAIM CERTAIN FEATURES OF 

THE SALOON ARE NOT EVIL. 

“It is in vain that you tell the working¬ 
man that the saloon is evil until at least 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 241 


you are honest enough to recognize that 
there are features of it that are not evil, 
and that as often as otherwise those are 
they which he most of all prizes and oft- 
enest turns to. 

“Again, it is in vain that philanthropy 
—or at any rate philanthropy as feeble, 
as intermittent and as unintelligent as is 
much of that which has, thus far. grap¬ 
pled with the drink problem—attempts 
such measures of reform as simply em¬ 
phasize the evils which they seek to fight. 

“Two or three facts must be plainly 
recognized and candidly dealt with be¬ 
fore we can even make a beginning. For 
example, one kind of a man goes to a 
saloon to get an intoxicant, and for no 
other reason. Another goes there for any 
one of half a dozen purposes—refresh¬ 
ment, amusement, information, physical 
easement, business appointment or mere 
change—for which last you, my brother, 
go next door to the club, and which all 
sensible people regard as wholly innocent. 

“Now, then, the strength of the saloon¬ 
keeper has been in keeping these differ¬ 
ent wants together. The wisdom of an¬ 
tagonizing him will be in separating them. 
This the great public house movement in 
England has done. 

“Suppose for a moment that the same 
genius that has touched and transformed 
great industries should bend itself, for a 
little, to understand that great temperance 
movement which today is going on on the 
other side of the Atlantic, and to bring 
to its inauguration among us the best 
brain and the most generous use of capi¬ 
tal in the land—would such a movement 
be without material as well as moral re¬ 
ward ? 


“We have come to recognize a great 
degradation in our mechanisms of re¬ 
freshment in America. Our next step, 
should it not be to remedy these things?” 

SOME CRITICISMS ON THE 
BISHOP’S PLAN. 

The Rev. John Hall says: “Bishop 
Potter, in opening his saloon with the 
doxology, has shocked the moral sense 
of the republic. As long as men will 
murder why not teach them how to do 
it scientifically. The Bishop has fallen 
beneath a temptation that has blinded his 
eyes to the moral obliquity of wreathing 
the fangs of a rattlesnake with roses.” 

The Rev. Mr. Hopkins said: 

“The plea that because the upper 
classes indulge an evil appetite the lower 
classes are entitled to the same enjoy¬ 
ment is a logical absurdity. The lower 
classes represent the large capacity in pub¬ 
lic sentiment. Instead of imitating they 
can and ought to reach the upper classes 
and correct their errors. The Bishop 
knows that Jesus began with fishermen 
and by them converted kings. 

“As long as villainy in disguise is 
more dangerous than shameless vice, so 
long no one but a fool will argue that if 
a man is going to drink anyhow, he had 
better use pure liquor instead of cheap 
liquor. If Bishop Potter knows ‘Cobweb 
Hall’ on Duane street he can find there 
the men who ten years ago started at the 
marble bar in the Fifth avenue hotel. 

“To argue that the saloon is here and 
we must make the best of it is a won¬ 
derful example of cowardice. It is equal 
to saying that the devil is mightier than 
God.” 








242 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY. 


Java, in violation of almost every law 
of social and political economy, is be¬ 
coming so populous that the natives are 
concerned lest the time may soon come 
when there will be so many people on the 
island that food can not be raised for all 
the mouths that need to be fed. But it 
seems to be a useless fear, for even at 
the present time, in an island that is but 
slightly smaller in area than the state of 
New York, there is crowded a population 
of more than 32,000,000 of people. If 
France had the same density of popula¬ 
tion its inhabitants would number 120,- 
000,000; the United States at the same 
ratio would have a population of 1,688,- 
000,000. which is about 100,000,000 more 
than the estimated population of the 
world. 

Yet in spite of the dreary theories of 
Malthus and his school, the people of 
Java seem to thrive and flourish in an 
amazing manner. Not only is everybody 
happy, but there is no such thing as pov¬ 
erty on the island. Or, to be more pre¬ 
cise, among the natives there is an equal¬ 
ity of poverty that places every one upon 
an equal plane, and yet lifts every one 
above actual need. Every man, woman 
and child of the glorious island of the 
East has enough to live on; every one 
has a decent place to sleep and an abund¬ 
ance of clothing of the native type, and, 
though everybody works for a living, they 
do not work nearly so hard or such long 
hours as do the people of New York, 
or, in fact, any American city. 

Another point that seems to set the pet 
theories of the political economists at 
naught is the fact that in spite of the 


crowded condition of population, which 
has a density of 568 persons to the square 
mile, the Javanese are increasing at the 
rate of 3,000,000 every five years. This 
increase, which started twenty years ago, 
has been constant. In 1890 the popula¬ 
tion, according to the census taken at that 
time, numbered 24,000,000. In 1895 it 
numbered 27,000,000 and in 1900 it num¬ 
bered 30,000,000. Recent estimates made 
by the Dutch officials give the population 
as 32,000,000. 

Malthus and his school regarded wars 
and famines as blessings to thin out over¬ 
crowded populations, but in Java there is 
none of these. A peaceful agricultural 
people, very religious and extremely care¬ 
ful of the decencies, there is scarcely a 
chance that civil war will break out among 
them. They are a homogeneous people, 
too, and the millions that live on the island 
look up to the native regent, who rules 
them under the direction of the diplo¬ 
matic Dutch resident, and obey the dic¬ 
tates of the throne as if they were divine 
laws. 

As for famine, there is little likelihood 
that such a calamity will ever visit the 
island. The land is so fertile and the 
climate so favorable that it can be made 
to yield several crops a year. Rice, which 
is the staple article of diet, is easily and 
cheaply secured from the neighboring 
island of Sumatra when the native har¬ 
vests are short. If Sumatra should fail 
to have enough to go round, then Borneo 
or even the mainland can be drawn on. 
Besides this, all kinds of fruits and vege¬ 
tables grow luxuriously, so that if one 
crop should fail there is a plenty of some- 






GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 243 


thing else to take its place. So, notwith¬ 
standing the theories of the economists, 
the Javanese are prospering under the 
most unfavorable (theoretically) condi¬ 
tions. If they wanted to be in accord 
with what the scientists of Europe have 
taught for these many years, more than 
half of them would starve to death at 
once, or die of the plague, or be killed by 
wars. But they do nothing of the kind. 
They are happy and reasonably prosper¬ 
ous. They not only raise enough for 
themselves, but also enough to enable 
them to export millions of dollars worth 
of the products of their fields and forests 
to this country and to Europe. 

THE WORLD’S DREAD IS 
HUNGER. 

The tragedy of human history is that 
even in the midst of a marvelous civiliza¬ 
tion the ghost of hunger flits along almost 
every street. The electric lights have not 
frightened it away. The noise of the ma¬ 
chinery has not driven it into the forests. 

The man who has nothing but his daily 


wages—who has no home, no money in 
any bank, no property, no pension and no 
salary—is walking lockstep with hunger. 

Hunger is so close behind him that he 
moves his heels with the nervous jerk of 
the convict. If he loses his job he feels 
the clutch of the bony hand. 

This is not fancy. It is the daily life 
of thousands. In the richest city of the 
world they are living from hand to mouth 
—they are living as though there were no 
city—as though they were the Indians 
who lived on Manhattan Island before 
the voyage of Columbus. 

How shall we get rid of this ghost of 
hunger? This is the greatest of all ques¬ 
tions until it is settled. Everything else 
is out of order until we have accomplished 
this. 

It is all well enough to build libraries; 
it is all well enough to plant parks; it is 
all well enough to endow universities. 
But the great problem of the United 

% 

States and of every other country is this: 
How shall all our people be delivered from 
the fear of this ghost—hunger. 


GERMAN OLD AGE INSURANCE. 


The impression prevails that our own 
pension system, created and administered 
for the benefit of soldiers and sailors, 
which carries nearly a million names on 
the rolls and entails an annual expendi¬ 
ture of about $140,000,000, is the great¬ 
est government undertaking of the kind, 
and so it is in so far as the government’s 
share of the cost goes; but the German 
insurance against sickness, accident, old 
aee and infirmitv reaches out to practi- 
cally all the workers in the empire, and at 


the present rate of development will make 
our military pension system appear a sim¬ 
ple and easy undertaking. 

The present comprehensiveness of the 
German insurance for workmen is the di¬ 
rect result of the Emperor's own interest 
and effort. The system is so complicated 
and vast that German insurance experts 
have confessed that they do not under¬ 
stand it in all its ramifications. One thing 
is clear, which is that the ordinary worker 
in Germany is pretty well protected 






244 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


against accident, sickness, infirmity and 
old age, or may be protected if he will 
make the least effort. 

The insurance is effected through a 
number of approved companies, some pub¬ 
lic and others private, but all under the 
supervision of the State. Under the law 
as it has been recently extended all work¬ 
ers for wages in the trades, commerce, in 
agriculture and mines, manufacturers, 
and, in fact, all wage earners, must he in¬ 
sured against sickness. The workman 
must contribute from 2 to 3 per cent, of 
his earnings toward this fund, according 
to his wages, and in the case of an ordi¬ 
nary day laborer the contribution is from 
\ l / 2 to 2 per cent, of the wage ordinarily 
paid a laborer in his locality. For every 
dollar contributed by the worker his em¬ 
ployer must contribute to the fund just 
half as much. The benefit in case of sick¬ 
ness includes free drugs and medical at¬ 
tendance, and a minimum sick pay, from 
the third day of the incapacity, of one-half 
the worker’s previous wages; or free 
treatment in a hospital and one-half the 
sick pay for the worker's family. During 
the year 1902 sick benefits amounting to 
$50,124,950 were paid to 4.800,000 
workers. 

Accident insurance is in another class, 
and under the law controlling it employ¬ 
ers must contribute to accident insurance 
funds in proportion to the salaries and 
wages paid by each employer of labor. 
The law includes all workers who receive 
not more than $750 a year. In case of 
accident, where the incapacity extends be¬ 
yond the thirteen weeks covered by the 
sick insurance, the injured workman, if 
he has been injured through no fault of 


his own, is given an allowance, so long 
as he is unfit for work, amounting as a 
maximum to two-thirds of his wages; 
and under this law 384.566 persons re¬ 
ceived during 1902 the sum of $26,- 
000,000. 

The infirmity or old age law, which is 
the latest development of the State pro¬ 
vision and care for the workers, applies 
compulsorily to all persons over 16 years 
of age who work for a salary or wage of 
$487 a year or under. Those who receive 
larger compensation, ranging from $487 
to $750 a year, may be voluntarily en¬ 
rolled in the insurance ranks. All infirm 
persons who are incapable of sustaining 
themselves by their own labor for at least 
twenty-six weeks in a year are entitled 
to the benefits of the law, and all persons 
over 70, whether infirm or not, come un¬ 
der the provisions of the law. The allow¬ 
ances are reckoned in five classes, accord¬ 
ing to the previous annual income of the 
pensioner. The average pension for the 
infirm and aged is about $30 per annum, 
and the cost to the worker ranges from 
3 to 9 cents a week. During the year 1902 
the sum of nearly $30,000,000 was paid 
to 1,100,000 persons. 

The insurance fund for old age and 
infirmity is provided by regular payments 
divided ecjually between workers and em¬ 
ployers, to which the State adds the sum 
of $12 for each allowance paid. 

The growth of the system may be seen 
from the statement that in 1891 the total 
amount paid in benefits under all classes 
of insurance was less than $10,000,000, 
while in 1902 the sum of $105,000,000 
was paid to 6,736,000 persons. 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 245 



Consequence of the Pursuit of Pleasure. 
























































































































































































































246 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 




HOW FRANCE AIDS WORKINGMEN. 


France has taken the lead in the matter 
of bringing employers who need help and 
employes who need positions together. 
Free employment agencies are provided 
for by the terms of a new law recently 
promulgated. And by the same law pay¬ 
ing employment agencies are abolished ex¬ 
cept in the cases of theatrical agencies, 
operatic agencies, and agencies for cir¬ 
cuses and music halls and nurses. 

The provisions of the law have been 
forwarded to the American authorities by 
Consul-General Robert P. Skinner. 

It is provided that free employment 
agencies created by municipalities, syndi¬ 
cates of workingmen or employers or 
both, labor exchanges, farmers’ ex¬ 
changes, mutual aid societies, and all 
other legally constituted associations are 
subjected to no authorization, but with 
the exception of those created by munici¬ 
palities they are required to deposit a 
declaration at the mayor’s office of the 
commune where they are established. 


The declaration will be renewed with 
every transfer of location of the agency. 

By another section of the law govern¬ 
ment agencies are created, the law set¬ 
ting forth that in every commune a reg¬ 
ister setting forth the offers and demands 
for work and for situations shall be 
opened at the mayor’s office and placed at 
the disposition of the public gratuitously. 
In connection with this register there 
shall be prepared classified lists of the in¬ 
dividual notices which may be added 
freely to the demand's for work. The 
communes having more than 10,000 in¬ 
habitants shall create municipal agencies. 

That there shall be no corruption or 
favoritism in these free employment 
agencies the lawmakers have declared that 
every director of a free employment 
agency who shall have collected a payment 
of any character, on the occasion of pro¬ 
curing a situation for a laborer or em¬ 
ploye, shall be punished. 


GREAT COMBINATIONS OF CAPITAL. 


THE FOREMOST PROBLEM IN 
MODERN POLITICAL. 

ECONOMY. 

Patented inventions of machinery en¬ 
abling one man to do the work of many 
and the private ownership of natural re¬ 
sources in land are held responsible as 
the beginning of the great monopolies. 
Fabulous wealth once in the hands of a 
few protected by the laws of private own¬ 
ership enables the financiers to perpetu¬ 
ate and increase their holdings into an 
enormous and indestructible money 
power. 


How far human ability shall be unre¬ 
stricted in its conquest to get, to have and 
to keep, is a problem of justice and social 
welfare that is now a wholly unsettled 
question in the minds of the people. 

Socialists claim that its only logical 
end is socialism, that is ultimate state 
ownership of all the natural sources of 
public utilities. Many believe that it 
must result in a powerful plutocracy of 
wealth ruling despotically a powerless 
mass of poverty-stricken people. Others 
maintain that, as every other problem of 
civilization has worked itself out to the 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 247 


betterment of mankind so must this finally 
resolve itself into a benevolent and pro¬ 
gressive condition. 

In 1904, the trusts had a capitalization 
of above twenty-five billion dollars, esti¬ 
mated to represent one-fourth of the 
wealth of the United States and about 
one-twentieth of the wealth of the world. 

The total number of existing trusts 
is given by Congressman Charles E. Lit¬ 
tlefield as 793, capitalized for the enor¬ 
mous sum of over fourteen billion dollars. 
The railroads are not included in this 
estimate, their capitalization being over 

LABOR 

STRIKES AND THEIR RESULTS. 

Unions of labor formed to protect and 
advance the interests of their members are 
of very ancient origin. At first they were 
probably mere secret associations of 
skilled workmen who were to know one 
another by special grips and pass-words. 
As manufactories increased and large 
numbers of workmen were gathered to¬ 
gether daily, they became closer organ¬ 
ized, and, in the strength of union, began 
to restrict and complete arrangements to 
command what they regarded as their 
rights against the similar enforcements 
of capital. 

Human nature being the same in mas¬ 
ter and man according to means and con¬ 
ditions, labor and capital thus came to 
present the remarkable paradox of two 
tilings necessary to each other, yet friends 
only by contract, and antagonists in 
wholly separated interests. 

The capitalist having immeasurably 


Uvelve billion dollars. As the national 
wealth is little more than ninety billions, 
it will be seen that the trusts reoresent 

x 

over one-quarter of our national wealth. 

The largest of all trusts is the United 
States Steel Corporation, organized in 
1901. This “Steel Trust,” as it is gen¬ 
erally called, is a combination of ten large 
corporations, each of which was itself a 
consolidation of several smaller com¬ 
panies. Its total capitalization is $1,404,- 
000,000. Its net earnings in 1902 were 
$111,000,000. The number of its em¬ 
ployes is over 100,000. 

UNIONS. 

greater means with nothing at stake but 
temporary profits which he can easily re¬ 
gain by increased prices, has little interest 
in arbitration, while the union having- 
nothing to gain but the question at stake 
with greater chances of losing through 
the at least supposed ability of capital to 
influence the arbitrators, have also little 
interest in arbitration. The only means 
having their confidence is that of the 
strike, which has few elements of rea¬ 
sonable success from the facts that the 
loss at worst is comparatively small to 
capital, which can easily be regained by 
higher prices, and because of the great 
number desiring to do their work, while 
the suffering public abominates both. 
That the present condition of adjusting 
disagreements between labor and capital 
is in a state of chaos unworthy of civili¬ 
zation is manifest to all and the injuries 
received by the public from both strikers 
and the capitalists are a shame upon our 
machinery of justice. 




248 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


WHAT IS THE RIGHT TO LABOR? 


By the “right to labor” most men mean 
the right of any man to work anywhere. 

We are ready to assume that the right 
to labor gets expression in the “scab,” 
and the denial of that right in the trade 
union. The exact reverse would seem to 
be the truth. The entire contention of 
the union is to secure a social status, the 
power to form and enforce suitable con¬ 
tracts as safeguards of labor, thereby put¬ 
ting the rights of labor beyond the ca¬ 
price of the employer. This safety of la¬ 
bor depends exclusively on the trade 
union. If it succeeds, the fitting terms of 
such contracts will be slowly determined. 
If it fails all the claims of labor will fail 
with it. All the rights of labor lie for 
discussion and determination between the 
employer and the employe. It is the un¬ 
satisfactory character of this relation that 
is the ground of controversy. The em¬ 
ployer so well understands this that his 
bitterest hostility is directed against the 
union and any extension of the union that 
serves to give it more power. 

FUNCTION OF THE SCAB. 

It is not difficult to conceive of circum¬ 
stances under which the employment of 
“scabs” is the denial of the right to labor: 

The “scab” is the resource of the em¬ 
ployer in breaking down workmen, and 
in this connection he begins to talk of 
the right to labor. Yet the scab has no 
right to labor conceded him by the man¬ 
ager. The scab is taken on and dismissed 
as suits his own convenience, and this 
solely that his own power in dealing with 
the laborer may be unrestrained. The 
scab makes and enforces no contract. He 


is present that no contract may be made 
and enforced. The scab lends himself to 
the tyranny of the employer, and secures 
in return only a brief period of employ¬ 
ment. When a new equilibrium and a 
lower equilibrium shall have been estab¬ 
lished, he, having done what mischief 
he was able to do, falls back to his old 
position of waiting for further trouble. 
Between the scab and the unionist no 
rights are to be gained. The unionist 
held his own job, and had not yielded it. 
The scab steps in to oust him under con¬ 
ditions inimical to the entire class of la¬ 
borers. The cry of the right to labor 
made in behalf of the scab is a mislead¬ 
ing cry, designed to divert attention from 
the true issue. His own chances of labor 
are in no way interfered with. If the 
scab succeeds, he throws someone else 
out of labor, and cripples labor in its en¬ 
tire extent. 

AN ANALOGY. 

A comparison employed by Professor 
Bascom in his concluding paragraph 
sheds light on his point of view : 

If a contractor, under an agreement to 
put up a building, should, in the prog¬ 
ress of the work, find himself at dis¬ 
agreement with his employer as to the 
interpretation of certain specifications in 
the contract, it would not be in order for 
the latter to say, “There is a man ready to 
take up and complete the work as I wish 
it to be done; all you have to do is to 
stand out of the way.” “Not in the least,” 
would be the response. “I have put my¬ 
self to expense, I have declined other 
work, and, moreover, I expect to make 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OE GOVERNMENT 249 


something out of the job. The difference 
in the rendering of the contract must be 
adjusted, and I must proceed.” In the 
case of the laborer he is first robbed of the 
power to make a contract, and then 
robbed of his opportunities because he 
has no contract. The thing under con- 


part ministers to every other part in re¬ 
ciprocal advantages. It is on this claim 
that the rights of labor rest. 

COMMON LAW ON STRIKES AND 
COMBINATIONS. 

In an article entitled “Employer and 



The Dowager Empress of China’s portrait on its way to the St. Louis Exposition. The 
portrait of the Dowager Empress of China, painted by the American artist, Miss Carl. 
It is here shown packed and in transit from Peking to Tongku. It was wrapped in a 
yellow satin covering hearing strange devices. A special line was constructed to carry 
"it from the Palace to the station in Peking, as the Empress would not allow it to he 
carried by coolies. The soldiers on gutml at the various stations through which the 
train passed went on their knees and covered their heads. 


tention is the power of contract and the 
rights which go with it. 1 he law and the 
administration of the law and the action 
of the “scab” under the law, when they 
oppose themselves to a fundamental right 
in a great class, are one and all hostile 
to democratic society. We can secure no 
organic comnleteness in society till every 

O A 


Employe Under the Common Law,” pub¬ 
lished in the United States Department 
of Labor Bulletin No. t, pages 98 and 99, 
the common law on the subject of boycot¬ 
ting, as laid down by the courts, is stated 
as follows: “Every one has the right to 
work or to refuse to work for whom and 
on what terms he pleases, or to refuse to 






















250 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


deal with whom he pleases; and a number 
of persons, if they have no unlawful ob¬ 
ject in view, have the right to agree that 
they will not work for or deal with cer¬ 
tain persons, or that they will not work 
under a fixed price or without certain 
conditions. The right of employes to re¬ 
fuse to work, either singly or in combina¬ 
tion, except upon terms and conditions 
satisfactory to themselves, is balanced by 
the right of employers to refuse to en¬ 
gage the services of any one for any rea¬ 
son they deem proper. The master may 
fix the wages, and other conditions not 
unlawful, upon which he will employ 
workmen, and has the right to refuse to 
employ them upon any other terms. In 
short, both employers and employes are 
entitled to exercise the fullest liberty in 
entering into contracts of service, and 
neither party can hold the other respon¬ 
sible for refusing to enter into such con¬ 
tracts. It has been held, however, that 
employers in separate, independent estab¬ 
lishments have no right to combine for 
the purpose of preventing workmen who 
have incurred the hostility of one of them 
from securing employment upon any 


terms, and by the method commonly 
known as black-listing, debarring such 
workmen from exercising their vocation, 
such a combination being regarded as a 
criminal conspiracy. On the other hand, 
a combination of employes having for its 
purpose the accomplishment of an illegal 
object is unlawful; for instance, a con¬ 
spiracy to extort money from an em¬ 
ployer by inducing his workmen to leave 
him and deterring others from entering 
his service is illegal; and an association 
which undertakes to coerce workmen to 
become members thereof or to dictate to 
employers as to the methods or terms upon 
which their business shall be conducted 
by means of force, threats or intimidation, 
interfering with their traffic or lawful em¬ 
ployment of other persons is, as to such 
purposes, an illegal combination. Un¬ 
lawful interference by employes, or 
former employes, or persons acting in 
sympathy with them, with the business of 
a railroad company in the hands of a re¬ 
ceiver renders the persons interfering 
liable to punishment for contempt of 
court.” 


HOW FINANCIERS MAKE MONEY OUT OF NOTHING. 


ROBBING THE PUBLIC 
AS A COMMERCIAL PRIVILEGE. 

Thomas W. Lawson, the noted capital¬ 
ist and financier in his exposure of com¬ 
mercial methods in “Frenzied Finance,” 
says that when the change in the plans 
for the flotation of the Amalgamated 
were made so that property bought for 
$39,000,000 was to be unloaded on the 
public for $75,000,000 he was so deeply 
involved that withdrawal meant ruin to 
him and to his friends whom he had in¬ 


duced to go into the deal. Besides, he 
had been convinced that the properties 
really were worth the higher figure. At 
that, when the division of profits was 
made, he says, he was cheated out of half 
his share. Continuing, he said: 

THE POWER OF DOLLARS. 

“At no time in the history of the 
United States has the power of dollars 
been as great as now. Freedom and equity 
are controlled by dollars. The laws 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 251 


which should preserve and enforce all 
rights are made and enforced by dollars. 

“It is possible today, with dollars, to 
‘steer’ the selection of the candidates of 
both the great parties for the highest 
office in our republic, that of President 
of the United States, so that the people, 
as a matter of fact, must elect one of the 
‘steered’ candidates. 

MAKE CASH OUT OF NOTHING. 

“I shall go further and say that there 
exists today uncontrolled in the hands 
of a set of men a power to make dollars 
from nothing. That function of dollar- 
making which the people believe is vested 
in their government alone and only ex¬ 
ercised under the law for their benefit is 
actually being secretly exercised on an 
enormous scale by a few private individ¬ 
uals for their own personal benefit. 

“I can better set before my readers 
this trick of finance by which ‘made dol¬ 
lars’ are brought into existence by an illus¬ 
tration than by any process of definition. 
Let us suppose that the United States 
Government at Washington, the only 
power legally entitled to issue money for 
circulation among the people, puts forth a 
particular $10,000. 

INSTANCE IN POINT. 

“B, a Western farmer, tills his soil and 
receives, by the sale of his wheat, the 
particular $10,000, which he then deposits 
in the bank. The bank, being a part of 
the government machinery, only receives, 
holds and uses the $10,000 under the 
safe-guards provided for by the laws of 
the land, so hereafter B’s material life 
is conducted on the basis that he is the 
full and actual possessor of $10,000. At 
this stage enters C, the Private Thing. 


“C purchases with $3,300 (B's money) 
which he borrows from the bank a cop¬ 
per mine, depositing the title which he 
receives from the seller with the bank as 
collateral for the $3,300. After purchas¬ 
ing, he arbitrarily calls the copper mine 
worth $10,000—arbitrarily, because his 
act is not controlled nor regulated by any 
of the laws of the land—arbitrarily, be¬ 
cause the actual cost, $3,300, is his secret 
and his alone. 

SECRET FINANCIAL TRICK. 

“Right here is the secret device, the 
financial trick, by which the greatest 
power in the land was created, and by 
which the people can be absolutely plun¬ 
dered of their savings for the benefit of 
the few. 

“At this stage the two-thirds of B’s 
$10,000, of which he later is to be plun¬ 
dered, has not been actually taken away, 
so he cannot possibly have any evidence 
yet of the process of plundering him 
which has been begun, or that the volume 
of money which he supposes is all that 
exists has been tremendously expanded. 
The next step is where C sells his $3,300, 
stamped ‘10,000 stock dollars’ (which, as 
already shown, he has exchanged with 
the bank for the $10,000 deposited by B), 
to B for $10,000, which $10,000 B with¬ 
draws from the bank by simply making 
out a check in favor of C. (B’s induce¬ 
ments to exchange his dollars for the 
stock dollars of C is the high rate of in¬ 
terest that they will return in the form 
of dividends, which rate is much larger 
than the bank can afford to pay.) C de¬ 
posits B’s check with the bank and here¬ 
by liquidates his $10,000 indebtedness to 
the bank. 





252 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


“At this stage B is still the possessor 
of $10,000, but it is ‘10,000 stock dollars.’ 
C is the possessor of $6,700, and D, from 
whom the copper mine was purchased, is 
the possessor of $3,300, but the two lat¬ 
ter amounts make up the 10,000 real dol¬ 
lars, and The Bank remains where it was 
at the beginning of the transaction. The 
people, however, are no wiser, but they 
know, because they have been most casu¬ 
ally educated to such knowledge by C’s 
agents, Wall street, and the press, that 
their country is tremendously prosperous 
—that its real prosperity is evidenced by 
the $6,700 added wealth in the form of 
6,700 new stock dollars. At the next 
stage the financial trick accomplished by 
the secret device is complete. B, the 
farmer, who has contracted for new ma¬ 
chinery and other necessities and luxuries, 
to be paid for ‘next season’ attempts next 
season to turn his 10,000 stock dollars 
into real dollars, and C, the Private 
Thing, knowing their real value to be 
but $3,300, refuses to make the exchange, 
but instead, by proclaiming their real 
value, compels B, who must have real 
dollars to meet his debts, to sell them for 
what C, the Private Thing, is willing to 
pay. 

“C, the Private Thing, is willing to 
pay their worth, which he alone knows 
is $3,300; he repurchases them at that 
price from B. that he may repeat the oper¬ 
ation at the return of the next ‘wave of 
the country's prosperity.' ” 

The plan pursued in the flotation of 
Amalgamated Copper was, Mr. Lawson 
says, precisely that outlined in the illus¬ 
tration given except that the purchase 
price was $39,000,000. the price at which 
it was unloaded was $75,000,000, and the 


profits $36,000,000, the National City 
Bank being the intermediary. 

INCOME OF THE STANDARD OIL 
COMPANY IS MORE THAN 
$45,000,000 A YEAR. 

The profits of the present Standard Oil 
Company are enormous. For five years 
the dividends have been averaging about 
$45,000,000 a year, or nearly 50 per cent 
on its capitalization, a sum which, capi¬ 
talized at 5 per cent, would give $900,- 
000,000. Of course this is not all that 
the combination makes in a year. It al¬ 
lows an annual average of 5.77 per cent 
for deficit, and it carries always an ample 
reserve fund. When we remember that 
probably more than one-third of this im¬ 
mense annual revenue goes into the 
hands of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, that 
probably 90 per cent of it goes to the 
few men who make up the “Standard 
Oil family,” and that it must every year 
be invested, the Standard Oil Company 
becomes a much more serious public mat¬ 
ter than it was in 1872, when it stamped 
itself as willing to enter into a conspiracy 
to raid the oil business—as a much more 
serious concern than in the years when it 
openly made warfare of business and 
drove from the oil industry by any means 
it could invent all who had the hardihood 
to enter it. For consider what must be 
done with the greater part of this $45,- 
000,000. It must be invested. The oil 
business does not demand it. There is 
plenty of reserve for all of its ventures. 
It must go into other industries. * * * 
The result is that the Standard Oil Com¬ 
pany is probably in the strongest finan¬ 
cial position of any aggregation in the 
world. And every year its position grows 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 253 


stronger, for every year there is pouring- 
in another $45,000,000 to be used in wip¬ 
ing up the property most essential to 
preserving and broadening its power. 

STORY OF THE ROTHSCHILDS.— 
THEIR MARVELLOUS RISE 
TO VAST WEALTH AND 
POWER. 

In the century and a half that they have 
been doing business they have amassed a 
fortune which is incalculable. Estimates 
of it that have been printed from time 
to time vary from $100,000,000 to 
$1,000,000,000. One may obtain some 
idea of the magnitude of their fortune, 
however, by comparing the sums which 
they have lent to various governments. 

LOANED BY THE ROTHSCHILDS. 

Since 1815 they have raised for Great 
Britain alone more than $1,000,000,000. 
They have lent to Austria in the same 
length of time $250,000,000; Prussia, 
$200,000,000; France, $400,000,000; 
Italy, $300,000,000; Russia, $125,000,- 
000; Brazil, $70,000,000, and they have 
taken up more than $50,000,000 of United 
States bonds. In addition to such tre¬ 
mendous operations, the Rothschild firms 
in the cities of London, Paris and Vienna 
handle a vast amount of private capital. 
They lend great sums to “embarrassed 
nobles,” and not a few rulers owe the 
splendor of their courts to borrowed 
Rothschild gold. For this reason, it is 
not remarkable that ten of the family are 
barons. 

When Mayer Anselm Rothschild was 
born in the Judenstrasse, Frankfort, in 
1743, his parents consecrated him to the 
church. Although he worked in his 
father’s store, driving a bargain when¬ 


ever there was an opportunity, he was 
told constantly that he was to become a 
rabbi. 

WANTED TO BECOME FINAN¬ 
CIER. 

For a long time the boy's remon¬ 
strances were in vain, but he finally over¬ 
came his father’s will in the following 
way: 

The elder Rothschild had left his son 
one day at the home of a neighboring 
rabbi, in order that this reverend doctor 
might persuade the youth to choose the 
synagogue rather than the counting room. 
After a long talk the rabbi gave the boy 
the talmud and asked him to read certain 
passages. An hour or so later the father 
came for the child and, finding no one 
at the door, he stepped into the hallway. 
A low murmur from an adjoining room 
caused him to look quickly, and his heart 
swelled with joy. He saw his beloved 
Mayer crouching over a book, and chant¬ 
ing from its pages, as if learning some¬ 
thing by heart. Approaching nearer he 
saw that the volume was the taimud. 

GRANTS SON’S REQUEST. 

“What are you reading, my boy?” 
asked the father, taking the book with one 
hand, while he patted his son’s head lov¬ 
ingly with the other. Before the lad 
could answer a loose leaf slipped out and 
floated to the floor. The father picked up 
the runaway sheet of paper and stared 
at it hard. Finally the smile returned, 
but it was broader and more worldly. 
The boy had tucked into his talmud a 
leaf from an old arithmetic. There was 
no further effort to thwart the lad’s am¬ 
bition, and a year or so later he was sent 
to Hanover to serve as an employe of the 






254 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


banking house of Oppenheim. After a 
short apprenticeship young Rothschild 
returned to his native town and opened 
a banking establishment of his own. 

START OF BANKING HOUSES. 

When Mayer Anselm Rothschild lay 
dying in 1812 he summoned his five sons 
to his bed and enjoined them to be faith¬ 
ful to the laws of Moses, to remain united 
to the end and to undertake nothing with¬ 
out first having consulted their mother. 
‘'Observe these rules” was his last in¬ 
junction, “and you will soon be rich 
among the richest, and the world will be¬ 
long to you.” The fortune which Mayer 
Anselm divided among his sons was by 
no means small. He had been the court 
banker of the landgrave of Hesse, who 
was afterward the elector of Hesse Cassel. 
In 1806, when the elector was compelled 
to fly before the French he left his large 
private fortune in the hands of his banker, 
who invested it so shrewdly that it in¬ 
creased twofold before the elector re¬ 
turned. 

ASSIST ONE ANOTHER. 

In the belief that they could amass 
greater wealth by establishing banks in 
different cities, the five brothers separated. 
Anselm remained in Frankfort, while 
Saloman settled in Vienna, Nathan in 
London, Carl in Naples and James in 
Paris. But, although the brothers were 
divided by distance, they were linked to¬ 
gether by family and financial ties as in¬ 
separably as ever. Whenever possible 
each assisted the other and in order to 
prevent death letting any money leak out 
of the family the members of the family 
intermarried. The marriage of close rela¬ 
tives has been a custom among Hebrews 


ever since the days of Isaac, but it has 
seldom been observed so strictly as by 
this family. For example, James, foun¬ 
der of the Paris house, wedded his 
brother's daughter; Anselm, who suc¬ 
ceeded his father in the management of 
the Frankfort firm, took for a wife the 
eldest daughter of Nathan, and Alphonse, 
the grandson of the original Rothschild, 
the present head of the Paris group of 
Rothschilds, and also by his seniority 
head of the whole Rothschild lamily, 
married his cousin, the oldest daughter 
of Lionel, son of Nathan. 

SOME MARRY NOBILITY. 

In a few instances, however, Roths¬ 
childs have married outside the family, 
and have even wed Christians. Hannah, 
the daughter of Mayer, on March 20, 
1878, married the Earl of Rosebery and 
became the first avowed Jewess to wear 
the coronet. On December 8 of the same 
year Margerite Alexandrina, daughter of 
Charles of the Frankfort house, married 
the Due de Gramont. Four vears later 
Bertha, a younger sister of Marguerite, 
married Prince Alexander of Wagram. 
Hannah remained true to the religion of 
her forefathers, but Marguerite and 
Bertha became Christians. 

There are now twenty branches of the 
Rothschild family and the London, Paris 
and Vienna houses are all managed by 
descendants of Mayer Anselm. Lord 
Nathaniel de Rothschild and Barons Al¬ 
fred and Leopold are associated in the 
London house. Barons Alphonse, Gus¬ 
tave, Edward, Adolph and James are the 
chief members of the Paris firm and 
Baron Nathaniel Mayer is the family’s 
leading representative in Vienna. The 







The Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Frogmore. 



256 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Frankfort and Naples houses have ceased 
active operations. 

TRAITS OF THE FAMILY. 

Among the peculiar traits of the Roth¬ 
schilds there is none more potent than 
their superstition. When Baron Al¬ 
phonse de Rothschild married, he chose 
for a residence the hotel in the Rue St. 
George which had formerly been the prop¬ 
erty of M. Pescatore. The house bore 
the number 13, and as soon as the baron 
saw the ominous figures he ordered them 
torn off, nor did he take his bride across 
the threshold until the hated numerals 
were out of sight. But letters still came 
addressed to No. 13, and the baron be¬ 
came harried by a new fear that legally 
the number of the house was still the 
same. Accordingly he applied to the 
council of the city of Paris for permis¬ 
sion to change the number, offering $15,- 
000 to the poor of the district if his peti¬ 
tion should be granted. The council ac- 

AN INDICTMENT 

CLASS ORATION FROM DR. 

HERRON—NO ESCAPE FROM 
SOCIAL GUILT. 

Civilization denies to man that highest 
right under the sun—the right to live a 
guiltless life. * * * If I put sugar in my 
coffee, I support a trust that practically 
administers the finances of the United 
States for personal profit. * * * I can 
no longer clothe myself, whether in good 
clothes or cheap, withoirt the likelihood 
that my clothes are made under sweat¬ 
shop conditions, in which men and wo¬ 
men and children toil together in hot-air 
slave-pens, fourteen to eighteen hours a 
day, for earnings that range from two to 


cepted the proposition and that is why 
the baron's house in this street is to-day 
marked by “No. 11 bis.” 

FEAR THE SOCIALISTS. 

The riotous acts of the old commune 
still inspire such fear in the Rothschilds 
who live in Paris that several of them 
still guard their treasures. The costly 
paintings, statuary and vases which adorn 
the home of Baron Alphonse are so 
mounted that after being exhibited to 
friends they may be swung back into the 
wall, at the touch of a spring, and there 
locked up in steel safes. 

Baron Alphonse has been so frequently 
threatened with death that he never ap¬ 
pears in public nor at the track, where he 
has a string of horses, without a guard 
of secret detectives. In 1885 he received 
an explosive letter, which had been loaded 
sufficiently to blow him up had he 
opened it. 

OF CIVILIZATION. 

five dollars a week. If I send my stu¬ 
dents to pursue further study upon sub¬ 
jects to which I have introduced them, I 
must send them to receive the benefits of 
endowments from the hands of a besot¬ 
ted philanthropy, drunken and sated with 
the wine of life pressed from the crushed 
and exhausted millions who feed the 
modern industrial winepress. Whatever 
I do, whichever way I turn, I can neither 
feed nor clothe my family, nor take part 
in public affairs as a citizen, nor speak 
the truth as I conceive it, without being 
stained with the blood of my brothers and 
sisters, without putting my hands into the 
wickedness that prostitutes every sacred 



257 


GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 


national and religious function. * * * 
Society denies me a guiltless “keep.’’ 
* * * It is just this right to do right 

which the economic system denies. 

“ CHRISTIAN BUSINESS LIFE ” 
IMPOSSIBLE. 

It is only the densest ethical ignorance 
that talks about a “Christian business” 
life, for business is now intrinsically evil, 
whatever good may come out of it. 
There is no such thing as an ethical bar¬ 
gain, for bargains are matters of force, 
fraud, and chance. There are no honest 
goods to buy or to sell; adulterated foods, 
shoddy manufacture of all that we wear, 
the underpaid labor and consumed life 
that make every garment a texture of 
falsehood, the hideous competitive war 
that slays its millions where swords and 
cannons slay their tens, all unite to baffle 
and mock the efforts of the awakened con¬ 
science at every turn, and make the in¬ 
dustrial system seem like the triumph of 
hell and madness on the earth. 

THE DILEMMA FOR THE CON¬ 
SCIENCE. 

Upon the conscience which enthrones 
Christ, civilization forces this dilemma: 
seek extrication and peace for yourself, 
at the risk of losing your soul through 
the supreme selfishness of living to save 
it; or else remain in the thick of the 
wrong, enduring the ethical strain, the 
tragedy of soul, the moral suffering un¬ 
speakable, in order that you may help to 
bear the wrong away from the necks and 
souls of your brothers. 

The latter alternative is the only one 
the Professor will allow. “Except the 
system of things he born again, the indi¬ 
vidual cannot he socially saved.” 


NO “PRIVATE PROPERTY IN 
RIGHTEOUSNESS.” 

There is no way for an individual to 
practice his social ideal, if he has one, 
until it is realized by society; he can only 
exhaust the possibilities of his life in 
bringing about the realization; he can 
plant his life in the common life and die, 
that he may not abide by himself alone, 
hut may bring forth the fruit of a re¬ 
demption which shall be to all the people. 
* * * An individual cannot practice 

the public ownership of utilities. 

THE TRUE PLAN OF SOCIAL 
SALVATION. 

Jesus used the Jewish synagogues, 
traveled the Roman roads, paid tribute 
to Caesar, and straitened Himself by the 
common straits; meanwhile. He put a life 
and an idea into the world that blew the 
throne of the Caesars to the skies, and 
that will level all our plutocracies to the 
ground; a life and an idea that will yet 
break every bond, and free every man 
from the rule of man. But He did it by 
staying with the people, by being beaten 
with their stripes, by being ground up in 
the “machine.” If we would follow 
Jesus in the social redemption, it will not 
be by escaping Caesar and his tribute; 
nor by fleeing from competition, wages 
and monopoly; but it will be by the faith¬ 
ful service of outpoured lives that will 
yet count strong enough to storm the cita¬ 
del of monopoly, take its weapons and 
engines, and thus end the economic war 
that wastes our work and fields and 
homes. The vast majority of human be¬ 
ings must live their lives in the machinery 
of civilization; we can only save the peo¬ 
ple from being ground to profit by captur- 








258 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ing the “machine.” And no such respon¬ 
sibility has ever been laid upon individual 
men as that which is laid upon them by 
the crisis of social change; no such ethi¬ 
cal strain ever came to the human con¬ 
science. This is the first time in history 
that such a task has been seriously under¬ 
taken. It is the approaching climax in 
the world-drama, and the spirit of private 
ownership is the villain in the drama. 

GRINDERS OF THE POOR—VIEWS 
OF HON. THOMAS WATSON. 

The student of history must be pro¬ 
foundly impressed with the fact that so 
much of the legislation of bygone ages 
has had for its object the oppression and 
pillage of the workmen. Philosophers 
amuse themselves in studies of the old 
caste system of Hindostan, a system of 
which the Brahmin was the legalized 
aristocrat and the Sudra the legalized 
serf; a system in which this common man, 
called the Sudra, committed a crime if he 
sat down by the side of the Brahmin, the 
legalized aristocrat. If this common man 
ventured to speak disrespectfully of this 
aristocrat, his mouth was burned. If he 
insulted the aristocrat, his tongue was 
slit; if he struck the aristocrat, the penalty 
was death. If. yearning to learn some¬ 
thing, he listened to the reading of the 
sacred books, hot oil was poured into his 
ears; if he committed any of the contents 
of these books to memory, the punish¬ 
ment was death. Marriage between the 
upper and the lower classes was pro¬ 
hibited under the most awful penalties, 
and the law of the empire declared in 
plain terms that a laborer should not ac¬ 
quire wealth, and that his very name, “La¬ 


borer,” should be held as an expression 
of contempt. 

In this way, those who had the good 
things of life sought to keep them forever, 
and they kept them until their own cor¬ 
ruption was the ruin of their magnificent 
empire. 

Let students earnestly investigate cer¬ 
tain modern systems of business and gov¬ 
ernment, and they will find many an evi¬ 
dence that in our modern states the laws 
have been so arranged as to do covertly 
what was done more openly in the ancient 
system. The great secret of the legisla¬ 
tion of today is, that those who have by 
unfair means acquired more than their 
share of the wealth, the privilege and the 
power, are attempting by every legislative 
device to hold what they have got, and to 
add to it. 

They tell us that the condition of labor 
is now vastly improved. That is true; 
many a workman now enjoys in his cot¬ 
tage conveniences of life which a king 
could not command some hundreds of 
years ago. It would be a strange thing, 
indeed, if civilization could entirely sep¬ 
arate itself from those upon whose shoul¬ 
ders it is supported; but the man who can 
deny that the working people of this 
country are now suffering from unjust 
conditions is a very bold man. 

The laborer has the right to complain 
that too much of the weight of taxation 
falls upon him, the poorer man, when the 
greater weight of the burden should be 
borne by the richer man, who is more able 
to bear it and enjoys to a greater extent 
the benefits of government. 

Jefferson’s dream was a system under 
which the poor should be exempt from 
taxation and the rich should bear it all. 





GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 259 


For this purpose, he favored not only a 
tariff tax upon the luxuries of life, but 
also a graduated income tax which should 
grow heavier as the income grew larger, 
and thus make the accumulations of dan¬ 
gerous fortunes almost impossible. 

Labor has just cause to complain that 
the hours of work are too long. Men and 
women should not be made mere beasts 
of burden; there should be times for rest, 
recreation, mental improvement. The 
man who takes his rest on the Sabbath 
day will do more work and better work 
during the year than the man who works 
every day in the year. 

The laborer has just cause of complaint 
because children who are too young for 
the confinement and the toil are kept at 
work in unhealthy and exhausting em¬ 
ployment. Child labor should be abol¬ 
ished. The very beasts of the field will 
fight to the death to protect their young 
at that early period when the parental in¬ 
stinct which comes from God Almighty 
is supreme. In grinding up our own chil¬ 
dren in the mines and the mills in order 
that dividends shall increase the fortunes 
of those who already have quite as much 
as they legitimately need, we are doing a 
most unnatural thing. Christian civiliza¬ 
tion, like pagan Saturn, is devouring its 
own offspring. 

PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIALISTS. 

The Social Democratic party of the 
United States, in convention assembled, 
reaffirms its allegiance to the revolution¬ 
ary principles of International Socialism 
and declares the supreme political issue in 
America today to be the contest between 
the working class and the capitalist class 
for the possession of the powers of gov¬ 


ernment. The party affirms its steadfast 
purpose to use those powers, once 
achieved, to destroy wage slavery, abolish 
the institution of private property in the 
means of production, and establish the co¬ 
operative Commonwealth. In the United 
States, as in all other civilized countries, 
the natural order of economic develop¬ 
ment has separated society into two an¬ 
tagonistic classes—the capitalists, a com¬ 
paratively small class, the possessors of 
all the modern means of production and 
distribution (land, mines, machinery and 
means of transportation and communica¬ 
tion), and the large and ever increasing 
class of wage workers, possessing no 
means of production. This economic su¬ 
premacy has secured to the dominant class 
the full control of the government, the 
pulpit, the schools, and the public press; 
it has thus made the capitalist class the 
arbiter of the fate of the workers, whom 
it is reducing to a condition of depend¬ 
ence, economically exploited and op¬ 
pressed, intellectually and physically crip¬ 
pled and degraded, and their political 
equality rendered a bitter mockery. The 
contest between these two classes grows 
ever sharper. Hand in hand with the 
growth of monopolies goes the annihila¬ 
tion of small industries and of the middle 
class depending upon them; ever larger 
grows the multitude of destitute wage 
workers and of the unemployed, and ever 
fiercer the struggle between the class of 
the exploiter and the exploited, the capi¬ 
talists and the wage workers. The evil 
effects of capitalist production are in¬ 
tensified by the recurring industrial crises 
which render the existence of the greater 
part of the population still more precari¬ 
ous and uncertain. These facts amply 




BOOK OF THE TIMES 


2tH) 


prove that the modern means of produc¬ 
tion have outgrown the existing social 
order based on production for profit. 
Human energy and natural resources are 
wasted for individual gain. Ignorance is 
fostered that wage slavery may be per¬ 
petuated. Science and invention are per¬ 
verted to the exploitation of men, women 
and children. The lives and liberties of 


conflicts, are interested in upholding the 
system of private ownership in the means 
of production. The Democratic, Repub¬ 
lican, and all other parties which do not 
stand for the complete overthrow of the 
capitalist system of production are alike 
the tools of the capitalist class. Their 
policies are injurious to the interest of the 
working class, which can be served only 



Scene of the assassination of the Russian Minister Von Pleve. A striking snapshot, show¬ 
ing portions of the remains of the carriage in the roadway, taken just after the terrible 
event. The coachman’s hat and parts of the minister’s clothing are to be seen scattered 
about the ground. The conveyance with literally blown to atoms. 


the working class are recklessly sacrificed 
for profit. Wars are fomented between 
nations; indiscriminate slaughter is en¬ 
couraged ; the destruction of whole races 
is sanctioned, in order that the capitalist 
class may extend its commercial dominion 
abroad and enhance its supremacy at 
home. The introduction of a new and 
higher order of society is the historic 
mission of the working class. All other 
classes, despite their apparent or actual 


by tbe abolition of the profit system. The 
workers can most effectively act as a class 
in their struggle against the collective 
power of the capitalist class only by con¬ 
stituting themselves into a political party, 
distinct and opposed to all parties formed 
by the propertied classes. We, therefore, 
call upon the wage workers of the United 
States without distinction of color, race, 
sex, or creed, and upon all citizens in 
sympathy with the historic mission of the 











GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT 261 


working class, to organize under the ban¬ 
ner of the Social Democratic party, as 
a party truly representing the interests of 
the toiling masses and uncompromisingly 
waging war upon the exploiting class, 
until the system of wage slavery shall be 
abolished and the cooperative Common¬ 
wealth shall be set up. Pending the ac¬ 
complishment of this our ultimate pur¬ 
pose, we pledge every effort of the Social 
Democratic party for the immediate im¬ 
provement of the condition of labor and 
fo 1 ' the securing of its progressive de¬ 
mands. As steps ill that direction, we 
make the following demands: First—Re¬ 
vision of our Federal Constitution, in 
order to remove the obstacles to complete 
control of government by the people, irre¬ 
spective of sex. Second—The public 
ownership of all industries controlled by 
monopolies, trusts and combines. Third 
—The public ownership of all railroads, 
telegraphs and telephones; all means of 
transportation: all waterworks, gas and 
electric plants, and other public utilities. 
Fourth—The public ownership of all 
gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, coal and 
other mines, and all oil and gas wells. 
Fifth—The reduction of the hours of 
labor in proportion to tbe increasing fa¬ 
cilities of production. Sixth—The in¬ 
auguration of a system of public works 
and improvements for the employment of 
the unemployed, the public credit to be 
utilized for that purpose. Seventh—Use¬ 
ful inventions to be free, the inventors to 
be remunerated by the public. Eighth— 
Labor legislation to be National, instead 
of local, and international when possible. 
Ninth—National insurance of working 
people against accidents, lack of employ¬ 
ment. and want in old age. Tenth— 


Equal civil and political rights for men 
and women and the abolition of all laws 
discriminating against women. Eleventh 
—The adoption of the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum, proportional representation, and 
the right of recall of representatives by 
tbe voters. Twelfth—Abolition of war 
and the introduction of international ar¬ 
bitration. 

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL 
CHRISTIAN PARTY. 

We believe the time to have arrived 
when the eternal principles of justice, 
mercy and love as exemplified in the life 
and teachings of Jesus Christ should be 
embodied in the Constitution of our Na¬ 
tion and applied in concrete form to every 
function of our government. We depre¬ 
cate certain immoral laws which have 
grown out of the failure of our Nation 
to recognize these principles, notably such 
as require the desecration of the Chris¬ 
tian Sabbath, authorize unscriptural mar¬ 
riage and divorce, license the manufac¬ 
ture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage, and permit tbe sale of cigarettes 
or tobacco in any form to minors. As an 
expression of consent or allegiance on 
the part of the governed, in harmony with 
the above statements, we declare for tbe 
adoption and use of the system of direct 
legislation known as the “initiative and 
referendum,” together with “proportion¬ 
ate representation” and the “imperative 
mandate.” We hold that all men and 
women are created free and with equal 
rights, and declare for the establishment 
of such political, industrial and social con¬ 
ditions as shall guarantee to every person 
civic equality, the full fruits of his or her 
honest toil, and opportunity for tbe 




BOOK OF THE TIMES 


2fi2 


righteous enjoyment of the same; and 
we especially condemn mob violence and 
outrages against any individual or class 
of individuals in our country. We de¬ 
clare against war and for the arbitration 
of all national and international disputes. 
We hold that the legalized liquor traffic 
is the crowning infamy of civilization, 
and we declare for the immediate aboli¬ 
tion of the manufacture and sale of in¬ 
toxicating liquors as a beverage. We are 
gratified to note the widespread agitation 
of the cigarette question, and declare our¬ 
selves in favor of the enactment of laws 
prohibiting the sale of cigarettes or to¬ 
bacco in any form to minors. We declare 


for the daily reading of the Bible in the 
public schools and institutions of learning 
under control of the state. We declare 
for the government ownership of public 
utilities. We declare for the election of 
the President and Vice-President and 
United States Senators by the direct vote 
of the people. We declare for such 
amendment of the United States Consti¬ 
tution as shall be necessary to give the 
principles herein set forth an undeniable 
legal basis in the fundamental law of our 
land. We invite into the United Chris¬ 
tian party every honest man and woman 
who believes in Christ and His golden 
rule and standard of righteousness. 


SPECIAL NOTABLE FACTS. 


PENSIONS. 

The United States government has at 
the present time a list of nearly one mil¬ 
lion persons to whom it pays annual pen¬ 
sions. This army of pensioners includes 
survivors of all the wars, excepting, of 
course, the war of the Revolution, sol¬ 
diers and sailors who are in receipt of 
service pensions granted for service ren¬ 
dered prior to 1858, together with the 
widows of soldiers and sailors, for whom 
provision is made under certain condi¬ 
tions. The exact number is 996,545, of 
which number 4,709 reside outside of the 
United States. The total expenditure in 
pensions during the fiscal year was $137,- 
759,653. Since the pension system was 
established it has cost the government a 
total of $3,037,826,081, an amount which 
is exclusive of the cost of establishing 
Soldiers’ Homes. The Bureau employs a 
force of 1.734, which with the employes 
of the agencies, 431 in number, makes a 
total of 2,167. The total cost of admin¬ 


istration during the year 1902-1903 was 
$3,993,2 1 6. More than one-half of the 
pensions paid are $100 per year or less, 
and the average value of all pensions al¬ 
lowed is $133.49. The number of appli¬ 
cations for pensions examined during the 
year 1903 was 226,002. 

COST OF A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN. 

While it is said to have cost only 
$200,000 to elect Abraham Lincoln in 
1864, four times that sum was spent in 
the Hayes-Tilden campaign of 1876, 
while in 1888. with tariff as the issue, 
$2,000,000 was said to have been used 
by both sides, and the figures have 
mounted upward since in some of the 
later campaigns, till it has been claimed 
that the entire expenses of both parties 
have together exceeded $10,000,000. The 
cost of maintaining national headquarters, 
with its army of employes ranging from 
forty to 100 men and women, has been 
estimated to be about $3,000 a clay. There 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OE GOVERNMENT 263 


are stump speakers who receive $100 a 
week and expenses. The distribution of 
a single speech in printed form has cost 
as much as $5,000, and there have been 
campaigns where twenty of such speeches 
have been delivered and circulated. New 
York and other cities had torchlight pro¬ 
cessions costing as much as $12,000, 
while $3,000 more has been expended on 
a single mass-meeting for the music, dec¬ 
orations, and hire of the hall. But these 
are only the minor items of disburse¬ 
ments. The heavy ones are made out of 
what is known as a secret or emergency 
fund. Both sides are continually draw¬ 
ing from it, and usually exhaust it on the 
eve of election. The fund is used to turn 
the tide in states that are considered 
doubtful, especially those on which the 
general result hinges. 

FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The official flag of the United States 
bears forty-five stars in a blue field, ar¬ 
ranged in six rows—the first, third, and 
fifth rows having eight stars each, and 
the others seven stars each. The garrison 
flag of the Army is made of hunting, thir¬ 
ty-six feet fly and twenty feet hoist; thir¬ 
teen stripes, and in the upper quarter, next 
the staff, is the field or “union” of stars, 
equal to the number of States, on blue 
field, over one-third length of the flag, ex¬ 
tending to the lower edge of the fourth 
red stripe from the top. The storm flag is 
twenty feet by ten feet, and the recruiting 
flag nine feet nine inches by four feet four 
inches. The “American Jack” is the 
“union” or blue field of the flag. The 
Revenue Marine Service flag, authorized 
by act of Congress, March 2, 1799, was 
originally prescribed to “consist of six¬ 


teen perpendicular stripes, alternate red 
and white, the union of the ensign bearing 
the arms of the United States in dark blue 
on a white field.” The sixteen stripes 
represented the number of States which 
had been admitted to the Union at that 
time, and no change has been made since. 
Prior to 1871 it bore an eagle in the union 
of the pennant, which was then substi¬ 
tuted by thirteen blue stars in a white 
field, but the eagle and stars are still re¬ 
tained in the flag. June 14, the anni¬ 
versary of the adoption of the national 
flag, is celebrated as Flag Day in the pub¬ 
lic schools, and by the display of the em¬ 
blem on public buildings and private 
houses in a large part of the Union. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The famous “Monroe doctrine” was 
enunciated by President Monroe in his 
message to Congress December 2, 1823. 
Referring to steps taken to arrange the 
respective rights of Russia, Great Britain 
and the United States on the northwest 
coast of this continent, the President went 
on to say: 

“In the discussions to which this inter¬ 
est has given rise, and in the arrangements 
by which they may terminate, the occa¬ 
sion has been deemed proper for assert¬ 
ing, as a principle in which the rights and 
interests of the United States are in¬ 
volved, that the American continents, by 
the free and independent condition which 
they have assumed and maintain, are 
henceforth not to be considered as sub¬ 
jects for future colonization by any Euro¬ 
pean power. * * * We owe it, there¬ 

fore, to candor and to the amicable rela¬ 
tions existing between the United States 
and those powers to declare that we 



264 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


should consider any attempt on their part 
to extend their system to any portion of 
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace 
and safety. With the existing colonies 
or dependencies of any European power 
we have not interfered and shall not in¬ 
terfere. But with the governments who 
have declared their independence and 
maintain it. and whose independence we 
have, on great consideration and on just 
principles, acknowledged, we could not 
view any interposition for the purpose of 
oppressing them or controlling in any 
other manner their destiny by any Euro¬ 
pean power in any other light than as the 
manifestation of an unfriendly disposi¬ 
tion toward the United States.” 

Secretary Olney in his despatch of July 
20, 1895, 011 th e Venezuelan Boundary 
Dispute, said: 

“It (the Monroe doctrine) does not es¬ 
tablish any general protectorate by the 


United States over other American 
States. It does not relieve any American 
State from its obligations as fixed by 
international law, nor prevent any Euro¬ 
pean power directly interested from en¬ 
forcing such obligations or from inflict¬ 
ing merited punishment for the breach of 
them.” 

MILLIONS PAID FOR NEW 
TERRITORY. 

The cost of the acquisition of vast ter¬ 
ritory by the United States is given in the 
following list: Louisiana, $10,000,000; 
Florida, $5,000,000: Texas, $18,500,000; 
California and New Mexico, $15,000,- 
000: Arizona, $10,000,000; Alaska, 
$7,250,000: Philippine Islands, $20,000,- 
000: Panama canal, $40,000,000; Pan¬ 
ama canal strip, $10,000,000; total. $140,- 
750,000. In addition the United States 
when it annexed Hawaii assumed a debt 
of $4,000,000. 


DIVORCE AND POLYGAMY. 


The Law Bulletin in an article by a 
prominent attorney shows that a defend¬ 
ant in a divorce may at any time within 
five years apply for a writ of error, and if 
reversible error is shown by the record 
the decree is annulled, modified or a new 
trial granted, according to the law of 
Illinois. 

Should a decree by which a wife is di¬ 
vorced he revised the divorced woman is 
reinstated as the complainant’s wife, the 
question of whether the man has in the 
meantime remarried and become the 
father of a child by the second wife hav¬ 
ing nothing to do with the case. 

“But what relation does the second wife 
and the child born in lawful wedlock bear 
to him?” continues the writer. “If the 


second marriage was valid at the time it 
was consummated, the second wife can¬ 
not be divorced until she has had her day 
in court, and if the child is once legitimate 
it is legitimate forever.” 

ALIEN PAUPERS AND 
CRIMINALS. 

The Commissioner General of Immi¬ 
gration reports that there were in the pris¬ 
ons, insane asylums, and poorhouses of 
this country during the first four months 
of the year 44,582 aliens who have been 
in the United States less than five years. 
Of these 28,939 are males and 15,643 fe¬ 
males. There are 20,279 insane and 
14,604 paupers. Of the inmates of pris¬ 
ons 3,995 are confined for grave offenses. 



BOOK IV 


Prosperity 

Happiness and Character 

WITH THE 


Theories and Conclusions of the Greatest Living 
Authorities on the Achievement 
of Success in Life 


specific instruction in the precepts, formulas 

AND PRINCIPLES REQUIRED IN THE MODERN 
CONDITIONS OF SOCIETY 






A TALISMAN FOR A JAPANESE SOLDIER. 

In Kobe women are seen about the street with long, narrow pieces of cotton stuff, in which 
they invite other women to put a few stitches. On each piece of cloth are a thousand 
black dots, and when each dot has had a thread passed through it by a different woman, 
the stuff is believed to have power to protect the wearer from all dangers in war. Very 
often quite a little crowd of eager women gathers in the streets round someone who is 
anxious to obtain the necessary stitches for a husband, a son, or a sweetheart. 
















CHARACTER, HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS. 


THE BASIS UPON WHICH TO 

BUILD THE VALUES OF LIFE. 

“I have lived many years in the world, 
and have known many great and strong 
men. It has been my observation that all 
strong men, the men who do the most 
for their country and the world, are men 
of strong religious convictions. My ad¬ 
vice to you, as you go out into the 
struggle of real life, is that you make up 
your minds that some way is the right 
way, and then follow that way unflinch¬ 
ingly.”—Prof. J. P. Mahaffy of Dublin 
University to the Students of the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago. 

To give such advice might seem un¬ 
necessary. Yet it is not unnecessary, for 
it counsels the formation of a habit of 
mind without which real success in life 
of any kind is impossible, and points out 
the only effective remedy for the mental 
disease which most retards social better¬ 
ment and to which the most highly edu¬ 
cated division of mankind seems most 
subject. 

CORRUPTION OF POLITICS. 

Many of our most highly educated 
men continually complain of the corrup¬ 
tion of politics, and lament that they are 
unable to do anything to cure this evil. 
Why are they unable? Is it not because 
they themselves—they for whom society 
and the state have done most—are with¬ 
out strong convictions of civic righteous¬ 


ness? They see the evil. They denounce 
it. And then they pass on. Their con¬ 
victions are not strong enough to compel 
them to descend into the arena and do 
the hard work—the sweaty and often 
dirty work as it seems to their refined 
taste—necessary to put down the evil and 
establish the good. 

Men professing the highest ideals con¬ 
tinually complain that the temper of the 
age is sensual and materialistic, thinking 
only of getting all the pleasure possible 
out of life. Grant for the moment that 
the charge is true. Why is it true? Is it 
not because many of the very men who 
make the complaint show and even boast 
themselves destitute of any positive con¬ 
viction of the destiny of the human soul 
when this life is done, and so encourage 
by their example their less fortunate fel¬ 
lows to regard their day on earth as all 
there is of life? And if the grave be the 
end of man’s living why should he not 
eat, drink, and be merry, no matter how, 
while he can, knowing that the rest is 
merely silence ? 

SOCIAL CULTURE. 

The disease of culture—the malady 
that holds it better to know than to do, 
and that puts refinement of taste above 
efficiency in work—is what produces the 
creeping paralysis of mind that sees evil 
but cannot stop it—that longs for the 
good but cannot achieve it. The feeling 


267 











268 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that life is merely a task to be got through 
as easily as possible, instead of a training 
for the greater and more glorious fields 
of effort to which death is but a gateway 
—the lack of religious conviction and pos¬ 
itive faith—these are the influences that 
make so many who should be efficient for 
good helpless to achieve the good they 
desire. 

What the world needs most today is 
men whose keen intelligence and high 
ideals are bottomed on the rock of strong 
convictions and positive faith in the des¬ 
tiny of the human soul as ever onward 
and upward through the gates of death 
and through all the boundless realms of 
eternity. Without that faith those who 
should be our best guides are but blind 
leaders of the blind. They cannot guide 
us over life’s sea to the harbor of right¬ 
eousness, for on that sea they are them- 

HOW TO 

THIS STRIKING ARTICLE SHOWS 
WHAT MAY BE LEARNED FROM 
AMERICAN METHODS. 

In America there is always an oppor¬ 
tunity and a proper recompense for the 
man— 

I. With ideas. 

II. With initiative. 

III. With the power to accomplish. 

Any of these is an invaluable asset; 

the three in one marks the really success¬ 
ful American business man. 

Ideas come from clear thinking and 
analysis; initiative demands energy; ac¬ 
complishment, system and perseverance. 

It is one of the strong points of the 
American that he does not wait for in¬ 
spiration. 


selves helplessly adrift, with neither map 
nor compass. 

WHAT IS SUCCESS? 

Success consists in being of some small 
use to the community or country in which 
one lives. It consists in having an intelli¬ 
gent, sympathetic outlook upon human 
affairs. That man has made at least a 
measurable success of his life who loves 
books, and art, and nature. It is success 
to love one's work. It is success to have 
friends and be a friend. To have a home 
it is a daily perennial delight to return to 
—this is success. To have ruddy, healthy 
children who climb upon your knees, and 
who are a comfort and stay so to you 
when you are old—this also is success. 
To have the poise and philosophy to bear 
with a light heart and a tranquil mind the 
rebuffs and blows of fortune, should thev 
come—this is success. 

SUCCEED. 

Just as he gets results by hard work, 
he gets ideas by hard work. 

In fact, activity is not hard work at all 
compared with thinking. 

Whatever the occupation he is engaged 
upon, he seeks untiringly for improved 
methods. 

MONEY FOR IDEAS. 

And whether he originates them, or 
they come to him in the form of sugges¬ 
tions from others, he receives them with 
an open mind, and considers them rap¬ 
idly, but with exhaustive penetration. 

It is because of this fact that Ameri¬ 
cans surpass any other people in the pres¬ 
entation of ideas. Being sure of a hear¬ 
ing. they have studied the art of effective 





PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


269 


suggestion. When they have an idea in 
the value of which they believe, they are 
not afraid to spend time and money 
in putting it in such form that others can 
have it placed before them to the best ad¬ 
vantage. Before attempting to convince 
others, they first convince themselves. 

It follows that Americans are the best 
salesmen in the world. 

When they have a story to tell, it is 
told in the most forcible manner. It is 
well weighed, to discover not only the 
strong points, but the points that will be 
most open to attack. Thus to every ob¬ 
jection the salesman is ready with an ar¬ 
gument, and it is impossible to describe 
the manner by which they make light of 
criticism, or the ingenuity with which 
they turn from a disputed point on which 
they have once gained the advantage. 

Naturally observant, they are quick 
judges of character, and are more con¬ 
cerned in noting a man’s strong points, 
from which they may have to fear re¬ 
sistance, than his weak points. For the 
temporary advantage they may gain over 
the latter is likely to be quickly overcome 
by afterthought. 

NO RED TAPE. 

While dealing with the subject of ideas, 
it is worth while to draw your attention 
to the accessibility of the American busi¬ 
ness man. 

It is not merely from good nature that 
Americans are so approachable, but be¬ 
cause they believe in the value of inter¬ 
course. They are always on the lookout 
for new ideas and new men, whose serv¬ 
ices will be of value to them. 

However busy an American is, if you 
have a legitimate claim on his time, you 


can see him without any red tape what¬ 
ever. 

It is impossible for Englishmen to 
have any proper conception of the far- 
reaching results of the constant inter¬ 
course between strangers in America; not 
only because of the policy of the open 
office-door, but as the result of casual ac¬ 
quaintanceship struck up in the hotel lob¬ 
by, the train, or the steamer. 

The Englishman may be in America 
four or five years, and in that time hardly 
enlarge his circle of friends at all. But 
the American is always getting to know 
new people and coming into closer rela¬ 
tionship with those he has previously met. 
Friends are with him a business asset, and 
there results a mutual interchange of ben¬ 
efits. 

Exclusiveness hardly enters into com¬ 
merce. 

Now, added to the production and in¬ 
terchange of ideas, initiative is another 
American characteristic. 

Present an idea to an Englishman of 
the old school, and he will overwhelm it 
with prejudice, or think it over till it dies 
of mortification—or the originator of it 
does. 

But the American will first weigh it, 
and, if the impression is favorable, put 
it not only to a quick, but a thorough, 
test. 

Initiative is the ability to take an idea 
off paper and put it into practice. 

BE THOROUGH. 

No one will charge Americans with 
procrastination; but it is worth remark¬ 
ing that the faculty of starting and put¬ 
ting things through the preliminary 
stages into actual operation is one to be 








2?0 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


held in the highest esteem on account of 
its rarity. 

Beginnings are usually commonplace, 
and nearly always difficult to direct, on 
account of the innumerable possibilities 
of form that present themselves. It 
might be expected, therefore, that just 
here we should meet another American 
characteristic. Following quick decision 
comes fixity of purpose. Concentration 
is one of the powers that the American 
business man possesses to an extraordi¬ 
nary degree. He goes to work with en¬ 
ergy and system. 1 he American, if he is 
anything, is thorough. 

That the Americans enjoy difficulties 
is a conclusion which any careful student 
of their business methods quickly arrives 
at. 

When there are two ways of doing any¬ 
thing, the American has learned from 
experience to choose the most difficult. 
There are no other people in the world so 
successful in getting things done. They 
hate defeat, and have no ear for excuses. 

Indeed, it may be charged that they 
err in intolerance of reasons for failure. 
They don’t want to hear them. They as¬ 
sert a disbelief in their existence. “Where 
there’s a will there’s a way” is a part of 
every American’s creed. 

ART IN TRADING. 

The only defeat they are ready to ad¬ 
mit is a thorough one. To have con¬ 
vinced an American that he is on the 
wrong track is to have already started 
him off on a new one. 

The American business man is a stu¬ 
dent of his trade. His tendency is to con¬ 
vert it into an art—of which the extraor¬ 


dinary development of the advertising 
business affords an example. 

The psychology of advertising has been 
mastered in America in a way that has 
never been attempted before. The spe¬ 
cialist who commands almost fabulous 
salaries has long ceased to be an experi¬ 
mentalist. He not only knows how to 
attract attention and to create business, 
but he has analyzed the cause that pro¬ 
duces the effect. 

Writing and preparing advertisements 
has become a science, on which some of 
the most able men in the country are en¬ 
gaged. 

You must bear in mind, in the study 
of American methods, that they are based 
on reason; analysis precedes experiment. 

Honesty is a substantial characteristic 
of American business methods. 

And to honesty add enterprise. 

FRANKNESS OF MANNER. 

There is no more delightful trait in the 
young or the old than absolute frank¬ 
ness and openness of nature, that trans¬ 
parency of character which lets us see the 
best and the worst in them, their strong 
and their weak points, without any ef¬ 
fort at concealment. 

Everybody admires the open-hearted, 
the people who have nothing to conceal 
and who do not try to cover up their 
faults and weaknesses. They are, as a 
rule, large-hearted and magnanimous. 
They inspire love and confidence, and by 
their very frankness and simplicity invite 
the same qualities in others. 

Secretiveness repels as much as frank¬ 
ness attracts. There is something about 
the very inclination to conceal or cover 
up which arouses suspicion and distrust. 




PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 271 


W e cannot have the same confidence in 
people who possess this trait, no matter 
how good they may seem to be, as in 
frank, sunny natures. Dealing with these 
secretive people is like traveling on a 
stage-coach on a dark night. There is 
always a feeling of uncertainty. We may 
come out all right, but there is a lurking 
fear of some pitfall or unknown danger 
ahead of us. We are uncomfortable be¬ 
cause of the uncertainties. They may be 
all right, and may deal squarely with us, 
but the trouble is that we are not sure, 
and cannot trust them. No matter how 
polite or gracious a secretive person may 
be, we can never rid ourselves of the feel¬ 
ing that there is a motive behind his 
graciousness, and that he has an ulterior 
motive in view. He is always more or 
less of an enigma, because he goes 
through life wearing a mask. He en¬ 
deavors to hide every trait that is not 
favorable to himself. Never, if he can 
help it, do we get a glimpse of the real 
man. 

How different the man who comes out 
in the open, who has no secrets, who re¬ 
veals his heart to us, and who is frank, 
broad and liberal! How quickly he wins 
our confidence! How we all love and 
trust him! We forgive him for many a 
slip of weakness, because he is always 
ready to confess his faults, and to make 
amends for them. If he has bad quali¬ 
ties, they are always in sight, and we 


are ready to make allowances for them. 
His heart is sound and true, his sympa¬ 
thies are broad and active. The very 
qualities he possesses—frankness and 
simplicity—are conducive to the growth 
of the highest manhood and womanhood. 

PROSPERITY P’S. 

Push—The force by which one’s ideals 
are converted into realities. 

Punctuality—A saver of time and tem¬ 
per. A creator of confidence. 

Politeness—The golden key that un¬ 
locks the door to many an opportunity. 

Principle—A self-imposed rule of right 
conduct which governs every action. 

Penetration—The ability to foresee 
events, and consequently to provide for 
them. 

Poise—The power of self-control, 
which often makes one master of the sit¬ 
uation. 

Precision—The habit of being accur¬ 
ate, and thus of averting annoyances aris¬ 
ing from error. 

Prudence—The practice of acting with 
discretion, and of wisely husbanding 
one's resources. 

Perception—The happy faculty which 
enables one intuitively to say and do the 
right thing at the right time. 

Perseverance — The characteristic 
which impels one steadfastly to pursue the 
object in view with an invincible deter¬ 
mination to triumph over all opposition. 


HOW TO MAKE A FORTUNE. 

Mr. Russell Sage is rated as “the errand boy in a country grocery shop, this 
wealthiest self-made millionaire in the well-known New York man of money has 
world. With no other capital than his amassed a fortune of over $100,000,000.” 
two hands, his head and the position of He is “perhaps the greatest railroad finan- 





272 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


cier in the world, and controls over forty 
railroads.” He says: 

“The secret of money-making is so 
simple that it can be mastered by any per¬ 
son of ordinary intelligence. It consists 
of nothing more difficult than the strict 
observance of a few common-sense rules. 

FIVE FOUNDATION RULES. 

“There are five fundamental principles 
which must be laid down by every person 
starting out with the wish to have a suc¬ 
cessful career. These are : Honesty, tem¬ 
perance, patience, punctuality and strict 
adhesion to fixed rules for his office and 
his home. There are other rules to be 
followed in different lines of work, but 
these five must invariably be followed in 
all cases. These five rules are the foun¬ 
dation rocks upon which every fortune 
must be erected, or else that fortune will 
be certain to some day totter to the 
ground. 

“A man may sometimes make a sky¬ 
rocket fortune by neglecting strict busi¬ 
ness principles, but like Hooley and many 
other prominent examples his wealth will 
some day be suddenly swept away. 

THREE OTHER ESSENTIALS. 

“To amass a big, permanent fortune in 
some business enterprise, every man must 
combine his strict adhesion to business 
principles with, first, a genuine liking for 
the work he has mapped out for him¬ 
self ; secondly, a clear, cool brain; and, 
thirdly, a hull-dog determination that he 
will overcome all obstacles that crop up 
from time to time. ‘Every business and 
profession is overcrowded/ is the cry. It 
is, no doubt, true that there are more 
men in the field today than there were 


twenty-five years ago—at least, it is so in 
America, but, on the other hand, the field 
itself has been enlarging all the while. 
There is always lots of room at the top 
everywhere. 

THE BEST EDUCATION FOR A 
FORTUNE-HUNTER. 

“I do not believe, generally speaking, 
that a college education will hurt any 
youth, but I do believe that in many cases 
it is so much trouble, time, and money 
thrown away. On one hand, if the boy 
wishes to become a lawyer, or a clergy¬ 
man, or an author, there is no doubt about 
it that a college education will help him 
enormously to achieve success. But, on 
the other hand, if he intends to enter upon 
a business career, I do not see how a col¬ 
lege education is going to help him any. 

“The kind of education that counts 
most of all is a common school education, 
supplemented by a habit of reading books 
of information, the newspapers and the 
magazines, in the hours of leisure. Put 
the boy to work when he gets through 
school, and let him do this reading in the 
evenings and on holidays.” 

THE VALUE OF HONESTY. 

Mr. Sage says dishonesty may accumu¬ 
late wealth more rapidly than honesty, 
but sooner or later the secret must leak 
out, and then “the man’s happiness is at 
an end.” He will be hated by the poor 
and despised by .the rich. 

“The trite old maxim that ‘Honesty is 
the best policy’ is as true today as it was 
the day it was first uttered. Too much 
pleasure-seeking has, more than any one 
other cause, brought fortunes tumbling 
about the ears of their owners. It has 





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274 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


nipped in the bud an enormous number 
of promising careers/’ 

Mr. Sage mentions a sympathetic and 
intelligent wife as another valuable aux¬ 
iliary in the task of fortune building. He 
concludes: 

THE TALENT 

Longfellow once said that the talent of 
success is nothing more than doing what 
you can do well, without thought of fame. 

Man was made for action and life is 
simply a field for brain and heart exer¬ 
cise. We owe a large part of our happi¬ 
ness to our mistakes, and it is true that 
happiness is never found in failure. 

INSPIRATION AND ASPIRATION. 

Don't mistake aspiration for inspira¬ 
tion. Ambition without genius is sure 
to end in failure. A man may be a very 
successful lawyer, though he might fail 
if appointed chief justice. A man may 
be a successful teacher, but entirely unfit 
for the position of college president. It 
is a mistake to say that a man can be 
whatever he wills to be. 

WILL AND BRAINS. 

The strongest and most constant will 
in the world is not an entire substitute 
for brains. All callings are alike honor¬ 
able if pursued with an honorable spirit. 
A blacksmith may be a man of polished 
manners, while a bank president may be 
a clown. It isn’t enough to say that if a 
young man will only do thus and so he 
may reach success. The power of pa¬ 
tient labor is the very essence of genius. 
What a man does is the real test of what 
he is, and to intimate that a certain per¬ 
son would accomplish great things if he 


“Of course, everybody cannot become 
a millionaire. But it is in the power of 
every ambitious young man to, in time, 
increase his starting capital ten thousand 
fold.” 

FOR SUCCESS. 

had more activity of mind is to say that 
he would be stronger if he had more 
strength. 

EFFORT AND GENIUS. 

All experience shows that it is the na¬ 
ture of genius to labor patiently and 
hence it is easy to leap to the conclusion 
that genius is but patient labor. Don't 
run away with the idea that will can do 
the work of intellect, or that effort can 
take the place of genius, or that mere in¬ 
tensity of desire can give intensity of 
power. Great deeds are done by great 
men and often without effort. Neither 
do great occasions make great men. They 
bring great men to the front, before the 
public eye, use them, but do not make 
them. It is more often that great men 
make great occasions. No man is ever a 
great man who wants to be one. Shake¬ 
speare wrote for money not for fame. 
Homer sang to kindle patriotism in the 
hearts of his country men. Grant, apart 
from his work, was the mos't ordinary 
man in a thousand. 

NO ONE KNOWS HIS POWERS 
TILL THE DAY OF TRIAL. 

However, no man knows what are his 
powers, whether he is capable of great 
things or small, until he has tested him¬ 
self by .actual trial. The more limited 
your powers the greater need of effort. 




PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


275 


There 1 ives not a man on earth who has 
not in him the power to do good. 

Have you ever entered a cottage, ever 
traveled in a coach, ever talked with a 
peasant in the field, or loitered with a 
mechanic at the loom and not found that 
each of these men had a talent you had 
not, knew some things you knew not? 

The most useless creature that ever 
yawned at a club or counted the vermin 
of his rags under the suns of Calabria has 
no excuse for want of intellect. 

PURPOSE IN LIFE THE PRO¬ 
FOUND NEED FOR SUCCESS. 

What men want is not talent, it is pur¬ 
pose; in other words, not the power to 
achieve, but the will to labor. Very ordi¬ 
nary ability, properly made use of, must 
bring a certain measure of success. Men 
are pushed forward by events over which 
they have no control—they never know 
their own power until it is measured up 
against enormous obstacles. Success de¬ 
pends more upon ability adapted to work 


than upon any superior intellectual power. 

A moderate talent, well applied, will 
achieve more useful results and impose 
more upon mankind than minds of the 
highest order whose temper is too fine 
for mechanical or industrial pursuits. Be¬ 
sides there is a discretion more valuable 
than the most extensive knowledge. 

Men must have tact and good judg¬ 
ment and quick perception. 

NECESSITY FOR INDUSTRY. 

Men of genuine ability are rarely idle. 
To allow’ them to remain idle is to allow 
capital which may pay large profits to 
remain uninvested. Hold your ground 
and push hard. Watch opportunities. Be 
rigidly honest. The young men who 
spend their evenings smoking cigarettes 
and telling shady stories with the street 
corner for their location and packing 
boxes for chairs, need not spend any time 
learning “how to write a check,” for the 
chances are a thousand to one that they 
will never have a bank account. 


SPECIAL PRECEPTS FOR THE POWERS OF SUCCESS. 


“My mind to me a kingdom is.” Some 
things are out of our control. 

Sometimes we want money and in¬ 
stead we have poverty. 

We want lovely homes and we have 
inside flats or boarding house rooms. 

We want parties and gayety and we 
spend our evenings mending hose and 
making over last season's fashions. 

We want leisure and we have work. 

We want position and we have the lot 
of the lowly. 

We want pleasure and we have hard¬ 
ships. 


We want fame and we have obscurity. 

We want grace and ease and charm, 
and we have timidity, self-consciousness 
and awkwardness. 

We want to be popular and bright and 
we are stupid and lonely. 

MISLEADING IDEAS. 

If we only would think it over we 
might conclude that everything was topsy¬ 
turvy, and upside down, and inside out, 
and “wrong side to,” and anything and 
everything, and all things except right. 

We feel like the sport of fate. 






BOOK OF THE TIMES 


270 


The toy of chance. 

The prey of destiny. 

The helpless victim of unseen and un¬ 
kind force. 

The fool of folly. 

A mistake, a failure, a blot. 

No, no; the mistake and the failure 
are in so thinking. 

There is a place where each one of us 
is king and queen, monarch and sover¬ 
eign, lord over all. 

There is a place where we may set fate 
at defiance and merrily laugh destiny to 
scorn. 

There is a place where one will rules. 

Where our wishes turn the tide of 
events. 

Where our desires are law. 

Where our determinations are sover¬ 
eign. 

Where our likes know no contradic¬ 
tion. 

Where our plans suffer no defeat. 

Where our pleasure is supreme. 

Where hope is fulfilled. 

Where ambition is victory. 

POWER OF MIND. 

This place is our minds. 

The world may be sad. Our minds 
can be gay. 

Business may be upside down and 

COURAGE, NERVE 

Is it possible to become a man of nerve? 
Ask the weary plodders, the people who 
keep up a treadmill gait of hard, persist¬ 
ent work, but who never strike out for 
themselves, never assume responsibilities. 
“We can’t,” they say; “we don’t dare.” 
They want some one else to lead. They 


slack. The mind can be forever in ship¬ 
shape and .apple-pie order and teeming 
with riches. 

Our face and figure may be plain; our 
mind can be beautiful, rarely beautiful. 

Our arms and legs may be awkward, 
our mind can he graceful with sweetness 
and hopefulness. 

Our lot may be lowly from the view¬ 
point of externals; our mind can be lofty 
and noble, the peer of the world’s greatest 
ones. 

Our home may be a small article on a 
back street; our mind can be a palace, a 
“mansion where dwell all sweet sounds 
and harmonies.” 

We may darn stockings with our fin¬ 
gers ; we can play harps with our minds. 

This sovereignty of our minds is a 
powerful sovereignty. 

Rule your mind, conquer your mind, 
have power and dominion over your mind, 
and the world lies at your feet, all the 
world. 

Have peace and contentment in your 
mind and there is peace and contentment 
in your world. 

Store your mind with riches and your 
world is stored with riches. 

Be great, grand, free, strong in your 
mind, and all your world is great, grand, 
free, strong; the rabble is below you. 

AND CONFIDENCE. 

cannot advance of their own volition. 
Doubters, imitators, weaklings, they 
make but little progress. 

The only way to become a man of 
nerve is to practice nerve; to exercise 
your nerve on every possible occasion. 
Take the point of view of the men of 





PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS. CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 277 


nerve and hold to it. Timid people never 
make any progress, because they want to 
be sure of winning every time. That is 
why they shrink and shrink. They think 
they can't stand failure. They look too 
narrowly at results instead of being 
anxious only to play the game well. You 
can’t find out whether you can do any¬ 
thing till you do it. And there is a lot 
of truth in that line of Virgil we trans¬ 
lated so atrociously— 

“They can because they think they can." 
But you must risk failure before you can 
accomplish anything. What a boon it 
would be to timid people if nerve were 
only put up in bottles and sold at the 
corner drug store! The timid people 
haven’t the nerve of a rabbit, and know 
it; the hosts of timid folk are full of 
timid ambition, uneasy desires, yet shrink 
and shrink because they haven't the nerve 
to stand failure. So they fail more and 
more ignominiously every day. 

It is possible for a timid man to change 
his attitude toward difficulties; it is pos¬ 
sible to stop looking at results merely 
and to embrace difficulties and dangers 
with zest. Remember, if you want nerve 
you must exercise it; and risk is what 
the man of nerve enjoys; he hates a dead 
sure thing. # Why not try his way of look¬ 
ing at things? The man of nerve likes 
to stake something on every throw, and 
the bffiger the stake the better he likes 
it. It is the stake that gives snap and 
zest to the game, the play element that 
makes light of difficulties. Try it, and 
see if the thistle grasped firmly does not 
lose its power to wound. Try the point of 
view of the man of nerve and see what it 
will do for you. 


But don't confuse nerve with rashness, 
recklessness, uncalculating folly. The 
man of the most magnificent nerve must, 
if he is a success, consider means and re¬ 
sults most carefully. Attempting a thing 
just because you see somebody else do¬ 
ing it, without understanding anything 
of the qualities required, or, if you do, 
without considering how near you come 
to possessing them, is not the thing to 
do. That is mere rashness, a poor re¬ 
lation of the magnificent quality we are 
considering. 



BOMB IN A PIECE OF COAL. 

Incredible ingenuity is exercised by Russian nihilists in 
making, carrying and disguising bombs. A chatelaine bag 
of a beautiful woman may be an infernal contrivance, 
which, on being burled, may send death and destruction 
over a terrible radius. And a bumble thing like a piece 
of coal may also be as deadly as the ordinary spherical 
bomb. This picture shows one made of a piece of coal and 
loaded with enough explosive to wreck a building of con¬ 
siderable size. Its smallness makes it handy to carry, and 
its exterior does not render it an easy object of suspicion. 

The man of nerve, having considered 
means, difficulties and all possible results, 
makes his decision, and then throws his 
whole being into the effort to make the 
enterprise, however difficult and danger¬ 
ous, a success. To do this you cannot 
have the thought of failure hovering like 
a black-winged bat somewhere in the 
hack of your mind. The man of nerve 
never does have. Having decided on a 
course of action, he gets all the pleasure 












27 8 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


out of it he possibly can, by fixing his 
mind on shining success—perfect, golden 
success—and by enjoying the fight with 
difficulties as an opportunity to show his 
mettle. 

You don’t need nerve to be a good fol¬ 
lower; lesser qualities will do. But if 
you want to be a leader, cultivate your 
nerve. If you aim at eminence in any 
direction, cultivate your nerve—the qual¬ 


ity that enables you to initiate move¬ 
ments, to forge ahead of the crowd. In 
fact, if you have any ambition at all, 
cultivate your nerve. Is there something 
you want to do and don't dare attempt? 
Wake up, timid folks; have a try at it! 
You will be dead a long time—probably 
a long, monotonous time. You might 
as well try for what you want while you 
are alive. 


POWER OF SELF-CONTROL. 


WONDERFUL CONTROL OF THE 
HINDOOS. 

Every one is familiar with the won¬ 
derful control which Hindoos exercise 
over both their minds and their bodies. 
They can stand or lie still for hours with¬ 
out so much as the movement of a muscle, 
and gaze one between the eyes with the 
impassive stare of an Egyptian mummy. 
That this control of the nerves endows 
one with much greater mental and mag¬ 
netic power the Hindoos assert and dem¬ 
onstrate with their jugglery of the nat¬ 
ural laws of nature, even to the extent of 
being buried alive for several days at a 
time and serenely appearing upon the 
scenes of life again. 

We all know that absolute rest for and 
command over the nerves is one of the 
greatest boons that humanity can acquire. 
What wonder, then, that the overstrained, 
restless, exhausted society and business 
women of the large cities have thronged 
classes where control of the nerves is 
taught ? 

The exercises, which form the most im¬ 
portant part of the Hindoo lessons in 
nerve control, are based upon the funda¬ 
mental truth that all the vital forces in the 


body centre in the lungs, and that breath¬ 
ing according to certain rules will gen¬ 
erate new and healthy forces in the body, 
which find expression in absence of nerv¬ 
ousness, strong personal magnetism, and 
an ability to concentrate the mind readily 
upon a given subject. 

While every woman may not hear Hin¬ 
doo philosophy, every woman may prac¬ 
tice its exercises and receive their benefi¬ 
cent results. 

PROPER EXERCISE WILL GIVE 
CONTROL. 

The first position is taken with the heels 
together and hands hanging at the sides. 
The position should be erect, without 
stiffness, and the mind should dwell upon 
the philosophy of nerve control while the 
lungs inhale and exhale deeply. When 
both mind and body seem concentrated 
upon the matter, with a long inhalation 
the arms should be raised slowly at the 
sides, in a relaxed position, till on a line 
with the shoulder. This attitude is re¬ 
tained for a few seconds, while several 
breaths are taken. Then, with lungs full 
of air, the arms should fall slowly to the 
sides, with the elbows held in toward the 





PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS. CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 279 


body and the hand and forearm forming 
a curve. During this gentle movement 
the breath should be exhaled so softly 
that the effort has the effect of being un¬ 
conscious. One has a drowsy sensation 
which, in a little while, gives place to 


The erect position should be retained 
in this movement and a finger of the left 
hand pressed against the right nostril. 
This exercise is the same as the first, and 
may he practiced first with the right arm 
and the right nostril closed, and then with 



BASKET-MAKER OF JAMAICA, WEST INDIES. 


This man during the summer makes these 
season hawks them in the various towns 
country he has been known to walk thirt 
to another with the baskets on his head, 
which make the weight very considerable. 

one of increasing physical self-control 

and greater mental balance. 

For as long a time as there is no feel¬ 
ine- of fatigue the exercises may be re- 
peated frecpiently, and may he varied with 
the practice of one arm at a time and the 
closing of one nostril. 


nskets from palm leaves and in the tourist 
Although the sun is extremely hot in the 
or forty miles a day, going from one town 
Each large basket is filled with smaller ones, 

the left arm, having the left nostril closed. 

When a pupil has thoroughly mastered 
this exercise, tensity is combined with it 
by holding the right arm in a horizontal 
position and a left finger against the right 
nostril while a deep breath is taken and 
held for about five seconds. Meanwhile 



















2 SO 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the extended arm should be made to stif¬ 
fen from the wrist to the shoulder and 
then from the finger tips to the wrist while 
the lungs are being expanded with the 
imprisoned air. In the first lesson five 
seconds is considered long enough before 
relaxation occurs. As the breath is 
gradually expelled the arm should relax 
from the shoulder to the wrist and from 
the finger tips to that point. As the arm 
slowly becomes limp the elbow should he 
drawn in toward the side of the body and 
the fingers curved upward. After ex¬ 
ercising each arm in this manner for ten 
or twelve times the two arms may be 
raised together. 

Since physical self-control cannot be 
gained without mental concentration, 
what are called “dead still" exercises are 
taught, by means of which one acquires 
magnetism and concentration. 

“DEAD STILL” EXERCISES GIVE 
CONCENTRATION. 

One of these exercises is to sit per¬ 
fectly still in a chair with the eyes fixed 
upon some clearly defined object—a pic¬ 
ture frame would do—for a period of five 
minutes to begin with, increasing the time 
eventually to a few minutes more. Dur¬ 
ing this exercise not a muscle in the body 
should move, and this means also that 
the eves should not blink. This exercise 
is varied by another in which the eye is 
fixed upon an imaginary line on a level 
with it and slowly moved, with a steady, 
unwinking gaze, along the line. 

This simple exercise is said to 
strengthen the eve and impart to it and 
the face an expression of composure 
which adds greatly to their beauty. Bet¬ 


ter still, the exercise is calculated to de¬ 
velop magnetic brain force. 

A Hindoo teacher suggests using a 
little stick or roll of paper during the 
breathing exercises for the purpose of as¬ 
sisting one in acquiring concentration. 
The paper or wood is held firmly in the 
hands while the lungs are slowly filled 
with air. When these are filled to their 
utmost capacity the tensity of the hands 
should be greatest, and, if possible, the 
air should be retained in the lungs for a 
period of five seconds and then slowly ex¬ 
pelled while the muscles of the hand are 
gradually relaxed until, at the expiration 
of the exercise, the paper is held limply 
in both hands and the lungs are quite 
empty of air. This exercise, it is said, 
creates an electric current, the effects of 
which are highly beneficial to the nerves. 

PRACTICE IS GREAT AID TO 
NERVES. 

Another and simpler exercise for ac¬ 
quiring concentration of mind is for a 
woman to sit perfectly still for ten or 
fifteen minutes each day and let the mind 
dwell upon some one thing. No woman 
realizes the difficulty of this exercise un¬ 
til she tries it and finds how great a cen¬ 
trifugal and how small a centripetal force 
her mind is possessed of. The game of 
chess, when not played to excess, is also 
useful in acquiring concentration of mind 
and in exciting the mental faculties. The 
Hindoo teacheqs, however, do not include 
this in their program. 

Occultism teaches not only magnetic 
force and beauty in the face and eyes— 
together with absolute control of the 
nerves—but, what is a most charming 



PROSPERITY . HAPPINESS . CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


281 


quality in woman—a magnetic and flex¬ 
ible voice. 

American women are too prone to speak 
in harsh and rasping accents, and they 
are only beginning to realize that there 
is a beauty in the modulated tones of the 
English and European women which 
Americans, as a class, do not possess. 

The oriental cure for a harsh voice 
is to test the tensity of the throat muscles 
by holding the hand against them while 
one is speaking. If the muscles are hard 
they must be made to relax while the 
hand is still held against them. When 
the muscles of the throat are soft and 
loose the voice should be soft and melod¬ 
ious ; and it will acquire still greater 

THE ATTAINMENT 

HOW TO COMMAND SUCCESS. 

Immanual Kant, one of the greatest 
philosophers of all time, said: “Two 
things there are that fill me with unspeak¬ 
able amazement and awe, the starry 
heavens above and the moral law within.” 

Law that governs the heavens is visible 
and demonstrable, law that governs the 
moral conduct of mankind is immediate 
and self-evident. 

As the power has been given to the 
human mind to use physical laws for his 
own advancement, it is reasonable to be¬ 
lieve that power has also been given him 
to use mental and moral laws for his 
betterment and welfare. 

It does not need demonstration to any 
one that there are invisible forces of aspi¬ 
ration, righteousness and love which are 
for us of more importance than all the 
splendors of the visible universe. We 
have invented microscopes to extend our 


strength and vibration, which will greatly 
add to its charm, if the energies of the 
body are allowed to flow directly into it 
without being interrupted by any tension 
of the muscles of the throat. 

The search for beauty, in its various 
forms, is older than historv, and Ameri- 

J 7 

can women who learn nerve control as 
taught by the Hindoos learn it, not be¬ 
cause it rests their nerves and develops 
forces of health within them, besides giv¬ 
ing them a greater power of resistance 
against the wear and tear of society, but 
because it gives them additional beauty 
of countenance, a more charming expres¬ 
sion of the eyes, and a reposeful manner 
that is extremely fascinating. 

OF SELF-CONTROL. 

sight one way into physical nature, and 
telescopes to prolong our power of per¬ 
ception the other way. By other means 
we have vastly enlarged our range of 
comprehension and physical strength. 

These are merely the outer things, the 
tentacles, as it were, of our narrow life. 
It is only the soul within that you can 
call I, and it is surrounded with a physi¬ 
cal structure of passions and emotions 
through which we come in contact with 
the ponderable substances of physical sen¬ 
sation. 

We spend most of our lives in trying 
to increase our command of the physical 
good things of the world, and, perhaps, 
if we are religiously conscientious we 
spend some time in “mortifying the flesh.” 
for the sake of our souls, but we mainly 
lose sight of the fact and fail to grasp 
the truth, that the soul can attain to what 
it will uninfluenced and untouched by 
flesh or environment. 




282 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ONE SIGNIFICANT AND IMPOR¬ 
TANT FACT. 

The great fact is here: in proportion 

AS WE ARE DEVOTED TO THE WANTS THAT 
COME TO US OUT OF OUR SURROUNDINGS, 
THE SOUL IS THAT FAR A SLAVE TO PHYSI¬ 
CAL CONDITIONS. 

Thus the child’s wants are all born 
to it out of its physical surroundings. 
As a result, it is “pleased with a rattle and 
tickled with a straw.” It cries for the 
moon and is thrown into mental suffer¬ 
ing because it is not allowed to play with 
fire, knives, china ware, and other things 
that it wrongfully craves. It chases but¬ 
terflies, kills birds, and increases its physi¬ 
cal ideals and desires until they may have 
full possession, and the control of soul 
desires and satisfactions is lost. The 
Christian Bible and all the moral philoso¬ 
phies of the world, are full of admonitions 
for self-control toward soul, rather than 
physical or worldly attainment, it is in¬ 
disputable THAT SOUL STRENGTH CAN 
BE ACQUIRED. 

Courage and energy are the pathfinders 
of mental accpiirement. What boy has 
not quailed before some ghostly dark¬ 
ness and then attained sudden courage 
and energy with the exclamation, 
“who’s afraid? i'm not.” There 
might be momentary relapses into fear 
as he entered the doubtful place, but his 
strength was renewed every time he as¬ 
serted, “I’m not afraid.” 

This illustrates the soul-strengthening 
process of positive assertion. Such asser¬ 
tions are continuous encouragements or 
courage makers. It also shows why fear 
and worry are so weakening. They are 
constant discouragements or courage de¬ 
stroyers, against which the mind can not 


hold up, and moral or nervous prostration 
ensues. “I think, therefore, I am,” said 
the Cartesian philosophers, and it natur¬ 
ally follows that “As a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he.” 

ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT AND IM¬ 
PORTANT FACT. 

THOUGHT CAN TRANSFORM A MAN. 
IT CAN STORE HIM WITH POWER. That 
much is the dictum of both scripture and 
nature. It is our divine resource for 
growth and progress. But great things 
are not done for persons or by persons 
at a single stroke. Strength is not an in¬ 
stant gift. Labor acquires it and passes 
it over to the custody of habit. 

To gain a given attitude of mind to¬ 
ward a thing is as difficult as to gain an 
erect posture when we have become accus¬ 
tomed to stoop, but either can be acquired. 

We make our world according as we 
fear or aspire, determine and execute. “I 
wish I could,” and “I can” are the two 
expressions that indicate respectively the 
unsuccessful and the successful man. 

To the person wishing for success say 
this: “You can succeed if you will,” and, 
should he answer, with the question 
“How?” you may know that in such a 
state he will fail. This does not mean 
it is the indication of failure to apply for 
advice or help. It is the state of uncer¬ 
tainty that means failure. Neither “fate” 
nor “luck” has anything to do with suc¬ 
cess, for, to inherit an empire greater 
than Napoleon had, is in no sense to be a 
success as a warrior or statesman. 

Those in despair need only to cultivate 
their will-power as those who have feehle 
arms need to cultivate their muscles be¬ 
fore they can lift heavy weights. 




PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 283 


VALUE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

Those who desire to be successful, and 
are not, have simply not given attention 
to self-government. They are not trained 
to perceive and to persevere. Therefore 
they are unreliable and have not the con¬ 
fidence of themselves or others. 

Huxley says. “The most valuable re¬ 
sult of all education is the ability to make 
yourself do the thing you have to do 
when it ought to be done.” 

Milton said: “He that reigns within 
himself is more than a king.” 

The pugilist who expects to overcome 
his adversary and be declared champion 
of the world goes into long, severe train¬ 
ing, and is our moral nature less worthy 
of being prepared to overcome its adver¬ 
sary? 

The power to make yourself do the 
right thing is an irresistible force for 
progress and success. That power is self- 
control and may be acquired. 

Is there something you want to ac¬ 
complish that ought to be done? Then 
command yourself to do it every time 
you feel yourself falter, and it will be 
done. Do not command yourself feebly 
or the results will indeed be feeble. But, 
throw your soul into it and cry vehe¬ 
mently: “Do this thing! Do it! Do it!' 1 
And then as earnestly answer: “I will! 
I will! I will!” 

Any one doing this will be amazed to 
see how quickly courage will come and 
worry cease. 

INJURY OF WORRY. 

Worry is to the mind what the tremors 
of palsy are to the body. Worry is un¬ 
certainty of direction and it is the dissipa¬ 
tion of energy. No one can succeed who 


worries; no one ever has succeeded thus. 
It weakens every constructive process and 
everywhere breaks the web of design. 
Therefore, command your mind to cease 
its folly. The question is often asked: 
“Why does one succeed and another fail ?” 
Half the time it is not because the suc¬ 
cessful person has more brain-power but 
because he has less friction and concus¬ 
sion in the machinery of his thought; 
that is, he has more self-control. He has 
the balance, poise and confidence that not 
only beget and sustain faith in his own 
success but point him out as a reliable 
man about whom others rally for given 
enterprises. 

Fear, worry and unrighteous anger are 
similar emotions from lack of self-control. 
Neither one of these, nor any of their 
kind, could exist if the victim had a 
trained self-possession. “Anger blows 
out the lamp of the mind,” says Ingersoll 
and the psychologists are all agreed that 
it is not an intellectual manifestation, un¬ 
less it he directed by design. It is a men¬ 
tal action that is nearest the flesh, and in 
no two persons are the causes or charac¬ 
teristics the same. One will be angry at 
what another will not notice and all per¬ 
sons are differently influenced by the 
same emotion. Some become flushed and 
some pallid by the accelerated or re¬ 
tarded action of the heart; many have 
therefrom a dry mouth and throat or the 
opposite; others become faint as the emo¬ 
tion subsides; a few are made bilious or 
are nauseated, while in almost equal num¬ 
bers it makes persons noisy or silent. 

As this is one of the most powerful 
emotions to which the mind can be sub¬ 
jected and as no one thinks of denying 
that by practice it can be controlled, it 



284 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


follows that every other emotion can be 
controlled by any one who is master of 
himself, or desires to be master of him¬ 
self. 

Probably the two most powerfully cor¬ 
rective thoughts ever uttered in the world 
are these, “ Know thyself" and “Control 
thyself.” Both are easily acquired and 
then the individual is indeed better than 
“he that taketh a city." 

Hypnotism is little more than induced 
belief. It is found that one who prac¬ 
tices self-control, as he would train a 
muscle of his arm for any purpose, can 

AGGRESSION 

The man who slinks, the man who says 
can’t, the man who fixes his eye on hard¬ 
ships never arrives at anything but hard¬ 
ships. Suppose a thing looks hard, that 
makes no difference, push ahead. Did 
you ever see a piece of work accomplished 
that you had thought too hard for mortal 
hand and brain ? Did you yourself ever 
learn to do a thing that you had believed 
impossible for you to accomplish ? When 
you look back what do you find made 
the new work you stumbled over so hard, 
so impossibly hard ? Your,opinion of it, 
the strangeness of it—nothing more. As 
soon as you liegan to push in dead earnest 
the seemingly impassable road opened up. 

You can spot the man who lacks push 
by this one sign; he thinks no one else has 
a hard time but himself. He always talks 
of the obstacles he has encountered and 
his heroic efforts to overcome them. Pie 
just as invariably thinks and talks that 
things came easy to John Jones, who suc¬ 
ceeded. He will tell you—if he gets the 
chance—how he suffered and bled and al- 


induce his own belief and thus strengthen 
himself to any purpose necessary for suc¬ 
cess. 

Thus, whenever one is pursuing a diffi¬ 
cult undertaking, let him, every time he 
feels himself falter or begin to fear, stand 
erect, breathe deeply and regularly, and 
say over and over with each breath, for 
five minutes, keeping his mind in" full 
sympathy, “I can! 1 can! I can!" He 
will then have confidence. Then continue 
another five minutes asserting vehemently. 
“I will! I will! I WILL!" and unlimited 
courage and will-power is at hand. 

AND SUCCESS. 

most died because circumstances were 
“agin him.” He will tell you how he had 
no advantages as a youth, or no health, or 
how big corporations squeezed him out 
of business, or how his friends swindled 
him. He'll rake together all the excuses 
he can find as a kind of defense and then 
he'll stand behind that bulwark and tell 
you how no one on earth ever tried harder 
than he did or ever deserved success more. 
But because of such and such difficulties, 
unforeseen, unconquerable, he failed. 

FAILURE THINKS OTHERS 
LUCKY. 

But just you point out somebody’s else 
success and see how quickly he’ll change 
his tune. “O, that was just luck," he’ll 
say. “Anderson happened to go to work 
for that firm just when they needed him 
and he fell right into the routine work 
and they simply forced him on up. Why, 
he couldn’t help but succeed. Llis work 
is just a matter of habit, routine, now; 
anybody could carry it on after once set- 
ting started.” 





PROSPERITY . HAPPINESS . CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 285 


If you suspect a man of lacking grit 
and push, just get him to talk about some 
other man’s success. If he is a quitter lie 
will never give any man credit for suc¬ 
ceeding where he failed. 

This isn't just willful obstinacy or 
wounded vanity either; the man who 
lacks sand, the man who hasn't the grit to 
push on against difficulties, really doesn’t 
know how success is won. He does not 
know that it is his own weakness of char¬ 
acter. the weakness that cons over hard¬ 
ships, supposed injustice, obstacles, what 
not, that has made him fail. It is the 
load he carries that-is his handicap. 

THOUGHTS OF FAILURE 
PARALYZE. 

The man who succeeds sheds disap¬ 
pointments, thoughts of failure, as a duck 
does water. He knows that if he lets 
them penetrate they will become a part 
of him, they will change him. He can’t 
afford to make a part of himself such ele¬ 
ments of weakness. He can’t afford to 
keep with him the things that neutralize 
and even paralyze his powers. 

Do you take comfort in counting up 
your difficulties and hardships? Does it 
seem to you that no one else ever had 
so many obstacles to contend with ? You 
are cherishing the things you ought to 
cast from you. You are on the wrong 
track if that is your state of mind: 1 here 
is no thoroughfare that way. You are 
groping in a blind alley, a cul de sac. 

When you catch yourself dwelling on 
the obstacles that block your passage, pull 
a tight rein on yourself, for whining is a 
sure sign of failure. Whining means a 
will too weak to push ahead and conquer 
hardships. 


Do you see a lion in the path? Well, 
glare back at him. Maybe lie’s only a 
stuffed lion. You remember the creature 
that terrified Mrs. Stetson's little hero in 
“An Obstacle"? You remember how dis¬ 
mayed the hero was at first: how he tried 
prayers, threats, and polite entreaties, yet 
that obstacle didn’t budge. As a last re¬ 
sort be tried ignoring the creature and 
pushing right ahead, as he himself tells : 

“I took my hat, I took my stick, 

My load I settled fair; 

I approached that awful incubus 
With an absent minded air, 

And I walked directly through him 
As if he wasn't there." 

Half the things that floor us belong in 
the same category with this terrifying 
creature. 

GRIT THE PRICE OF SUCCESS. 

But there are some obstacles that won’t 
down before an absent minded air. There 
are some that you must fight tooth and 
nail. Then it is a question of how much 
you care for success. Some people who 
talk about hardships are too downright 
lazy and selfish to work. They want to 
accomplish great things, but it’s hard 
work to push. So they sit down and rub 
their bruises and tell why they can't go 
on. But they never admit they are lazy. 
No, no. They have been abused, unjustly 
treated by fate. 

What are you willing to pay for suc¬ 
cess? Ease, comfort, leisure? Are you 
willing to work for things as Lincoln 
did? When he decided that he ought to 
study grammar he walked six miles to 
borrow a hook and then sat up half the 
night studying. He didn’t waste time 









BOOK OF THE TIMES 


m 


thinking how impossible it would be to 
learn grammar without a teacher. When 
he mastered grammar he borrowed an¬ 
other book, and when he couldn't afford 
a light at home he found a neighbor who 
let him read by the firelight. He kept 
his eye on what he wanted, and no matter 
what was in the way he kept moving in 
that direction. 

PUSH OR STAND STILL. 

Resolutely to push forward, to make 
sally after sally in the direction you want 
to go, is the only way to conquer ob¬ 
stacles. You can get through the densest 
crowd if you know how to use your shoul¬ 
ders, if you take advantage of every little 
opening. But you have to be alert and 
quick and you have to keep up your push¬ 
ing if you don’t want to get squeezed to 
death. If you stop pushing you will just 
be wedged in the crowd and kept at a 
standstill. 

The man who resolutely and straight¬ 
forwardly attacks difficulties gains power 
little by little. The only way to gain 
strength is to lean on what you have. 
The power of the athlete is the result of 
long continued practice, the product of 
thousand times repeated efforts. Helen 
Keller, deaf and blind from infancy, 
learned at last to communicate with the 
world. She has written a book that shows 
no mean knowledge of men, nature and 
events; she has won the friendship of 
world famous men, and now, at the age 
of 24 , has just b£en graduated from Rad- 
cliffe College. How astonishing are her 
achievements, representing, as they do, 
such patient perseverance, such inde¬ 
fatigable determination. 

Hardly less remarkable have been the 


labors of her teacher, Miss Annie M. Sul¬ 
livan, who for seventeen years has been 
leading the blind girl “up out of Egypt.” 
What examples the lives of these two 
heroic women are of the power of push! 
They kept steadily moving on, not stop¬ 
ping to moan over hardships. They could 
have done no other way to have crowned 
die long stretch of years with so many 
successes. 

Is there something that you want be¬ 
hind that hill of difficulty? Stop think¬ 
ing about the obstacles and simply push 
ahead. Don’t be a vegetable; don’t take 
root in your tracks. If it is only an 
inch, go forward. 

THE GREATEST FORTUNE TELL¬ 
ERS. 

Every human being yearns to look into 
the future. A man may think himself 
wise and above petty superstitions—but 
how solemnly and earnestly he listens 
while some foolish young girl or wrinkled 
old gypsy talks about the lines in his 
hand. 

He would not listen to such a person 
or be influenced by her ordinarily, but old 
superstition makes him give close atten¬ 
tion to foolish talk about the future. 

This universal interest in fortune tell¬ 
ing, an old inheritance, makes 11 s all rather 
foolish at times. 

It might be made a useful thing if we 
could get into the habit of telling our 
own individual fortunes, instead of rely¬ 
ing upon hysterical or swindling clairvoy¬ 
ants. 

You, the young man reading this, 
should make up your mind to be your 
own fortune teller. 

The usual soothsayer with the itching 











BOOK- OF THE TIMES 


288 

palm looks at your line of life, your line 
of luck, your line of fate, etc., and she 
reads your future according to the length 
and strength and general behavior of 
these lines. 

But you can tell your own fortune bet¬ 
ter than she can. 

Don't look into the lines of your hand; 
look into your heart, into your mind, into 
your ways of living. 

It does not matter how long a dis¬ 
tance your fate line may run; but it does 
matter a great deal how long you are able 
to stick at a thing that you have once un¬ 
dertaken. 

Don't believe the gentle witch who tells 
you that you will fail because your line 
of fate is broken. 

But tell yourself that you will fail be¬ 
cause your line of effort is so often broken. 

Never mind the life line or its vagaries. 
That line has nothing to do with your 
life or your death. Its shape simply 
shows how you happened to close your 
hand and form its wrinkles when you 
were an unborn baby. 

But there are other lines that you can 
read, inside of yourself, and these will 
tell you some truths about your chances 
for a long life—or a short one. 

If you see in your past life a long line 
of cock-tails before breakfast—or after 
breakfast for that matter—you may pre¬ 
dict for yourself a not very long and not 
very useful life, and be proud of your 
accuracy as a prophet later on. 

If vou see in yourself other lines of 
foolishness—late hours, dissipation—if 
you find yourself sleepy as your work 
begins, when you ought to be at your 
best—you may safely predict for yourself 


shortness of days and lack of usefulness 
in them. 

The present fashion among fortune 
tellers and their dupes is what is called 
“the reading of the crystal ball." The 
wise old gentleman or lady who makes 
money out of the foolish ones looks into 
the crystal ball and then spins a marvelous 
tale of things seen there concerning the 
future. 

The crystal ball, of course, is a fraud 
or, at the best, self-deception on the part 
of the fortune teller. 

But every one of us possesses a crys¬ 
tal ball, more or less clear, more or less 
cloudy. That crystal ball is our own 
soul, our own consciousness, and in it, if 
we will, we can read the truth about the 
future very clearly. 

To be your own fortune teller does not 
recpiire any very great preparation; no 
hours of fasting or special diet are neces¬ 
sary. 

To be your own fortune teller you have 
only to cast out self-deception. 

Stop fooling yourself, and look hon¬ 
estly into your own character. You can 
read there pretty accurately what is going 
to happen to you. And, best of all, you 
can not only tell your own fortune, but 
you can control it, if you will be guided 
and warned by the weaknesses that you 
see in your own personality. 

Don't look at this picture in a care¬ 
less way. Don’t read this editorial or 
glance it over with condescending good 
nature, saying to yourself, “I know a lot 
of people that might well investigate their 
own characters.” 

Apply the advice that is here given to 
yourself. Make an experiment as your 
own fortune teller. Take an hour by 



PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS . CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


2S9 


yourself, look into your own mind, study 
your own weaknesses. 

Tell yourself truthfully your mistakes, 
and follow along the lines of your mis¬ 
conduct to their final, inevitable end. 

If you are a gambler, you can see in 
the crystal ball disgrace and failure in 
the end. 

If you are insincere, you can see loss 
of friends and self-respect. 


If you are inclined to drink, you can 
see a life wasted and withered toward 
the close. 

If you are selfish, you will see in the 
future the lonely bitterness that selfish- 
ness brings. 

Try to read your own fortune, and be 
guided by what you see in your crystal 
ball. Your time will not be wasted. 


THE CHINESE AND CONFUCIUS. 


Confucius was a sage who has held the 
obedience and loving direction of his en¬ 
tire race for more than twenty centuries, 
an achievement without parallel in the 
history of mankind. 

A PURELY SECULAR TEACHER. 

This is the more remarkable because 
“the theories and teachings of the great 
Chinese sage were entirely secular." 

They deal exclusively with the rela¬ 
tions and duties of man to man in this life, 
and neither bore reference to or made ac¬ 
count of a higher Being, or Beings, or a 
future state of existence. His disciples 
have left upon record four subjects upon 
which he seldom spoke. One of these was 
spiritual beings and a future state. In 
answer to a question from a minister of 
state as to what constituted wisdom, the 
sage replied: “To give oneself earnestly 
to the duties due to men, and while re¬ 
specting spiritual beings, if there are 
such, to keep aloof from them—this may 
be called wisdom.” Being asked by a dis¬ 
ciple concerning ancestral worship which 
then, as now, was universal in China, he 
answered i “While you cannot seive 
men, how can you serve spirits?" Asked 


by the same disciple concerning a future 
state, he replied with the counter ques¬ 
tion : “While you do not know life, what 
can you know about death?” 

HIS THREE WORDS. 

Confucius condensed the whole of his 
teachings into three words— Li, Shu, and 
Chiintz. The significance of these is thus 
explained: 

Li means the primary and the ultimate 
law of right action, and implies doing the 
right thing at the right time in the right 
way, and from the right motive. Shu 
was explained by Confucius as equivalent 
to the Golden Rule: 

“What you do not wish that others 
should do unto you, do not unto them.” 
The Chinese character, “shu,” includes 
consideration, charity, forbearance, 
thoughtfulness for others, mutuality of 
rights and interests. It covers the entire 
principles of the brotherhood of man put 
into practice. The English equivalent, as 
used among us, involves only the com¬ 
mercial idea of “give and take.” 

Chiintz can only be translated as “a 
thorough gentleman” : 

The gentleman, in dealing with others, 






200 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


does not descend to anything low or im¬ 
proper. The gentleman enters into no 
situation where he is not himself. If he 
holds a high station, he does not treat 
with contempt those below him; if he oc¬ 
cupies an inferior position, he uses no 
mean arts to gain the favor of his su¬ 
periors. He corrects himself and blames 
not others; he feels no dissatisfaction. On 
the one hand, he murmurs not at Heaven; 
nor on the other, does he harbor resent¬ 
ment towards man. Hence the gentleman 
dwells at ease, entirely waiting the Heav¬ 
enly will. 

HOW THEY WORK OUT IN 
PRACTICE. 

With few exceptions every peculiarity 
and every virtue in the social or political 
forms, customs, and usages of the Chinese 
may he traced back to Confucius, their 
hero, master, and sage. He was strongly 
opposed to war and to standing armies, 
and taught the rulers of China to conquer 
their enemies by showing the excellence of 


good government. The Chinese today, 
whether taken cn masse or as individuals, 
are the most peace-loving race in the 
world. Nowhere is that beatitude, 
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” held so 
highly in honor and obedience. 

THE CORNER-STONE OF 
CONFUCIANISM. 

All Chinese children are taught the 
ethics which Confucius formulated 2,400 
years ago. But the corner-stone of his 
system is older than that: 

The Chinese sage had found in the 
ancient records the following declaration 
made by a king and hero twelve hundred 
years before he was born: “The great 
Cod has conferred upon the people a 
moral sense, compliance with which would 
show their nature to be invariably right. 
To give them tranquillity in which to pur¬ 
sue the course indicated by it, is the task 
of the Sovereign.” Confucius accepted 
this statement as entirely correct, and upon 
it. as a corner-stone, erected his system. 


POWERS OF REST AND PEACE. 


The body is in normal, healthful con¬ 
dition when there is a sense of life and 
strength with no consciousness of any 
special part. 

The chief good for the body is physi¬ 
cal calm. 

Spiritual calm is in the same way the 
test of inner health. 

Gloom, despair, sorrow and turmoil are 
never necessary conditions. They are, 
as are bodily pains, symptoms to show 
that something is wrong. The normal 
condition of the mind and heart is a sense 
of life and strength attuned to quiet se¬ 


renity. Inner calm is the equilibrium of 
the spirit. 

What most impresses the student of the 
life of Jesus? Is it not the sense of 
strength and serene greatness ? 

He sleeps upon the boat while all His 
companions are terror-stricken by the sur¬ 
rounding storm. When He is awake to 
their tumult. He rebukes their terror and 
want of trustfulness and by His quiet 
strength rebukes the tempest, too, and 
stills the tossing of the waves. 

At another time, overtaken by a storm 
when His disciples are alone upon the 




PROSPERITY , HAPPINESS. CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


201 


sea, they see amid the darkness of wind 
and rain, and the glare of lightning, the 
figure of their Master coming to them in 
the very midst of storm and billow, and 
the gentle peace of His greeting calms the 
raging of the tempest and brings quiet 
again to their hearts. 

The physical pictures here drawn are 
incredible to many, but can any one doubt 
the fact of their spiritual counterpart? 
The turmoil of trying hours would indeed 
be transformed into peace when there was 
among them a soul so centered in the 
divine. His messages would always bring 
quiet and strength into every storm of life. 

The secret of all greatness is in having 
something akin to this calm strength. 

Washington and Lincoln are perma¬ 
nently impressive figures because of the 
self-poise in. their natures. This made 


the people of their generation feel, in times 
of calamity and combat, that one man, 
at least, stood impervious to excitement 
in quiet composure and unflurried power. 
They have given the same impression of 
strength to all the generations since. 

In private life we all know persons 
who give the impression of reserved 
force. They are the ones whose calm 
spirits attract to them troubled hearts. 
They are such as have hearts at leisure 
from themselves to soothe and sympa¬ 
thize. 

Persons who prove themselves thus to 
he victors in the stress of life have found 
nothing which may not be faced with clear 
eyes and trusting hearts. They have not 
missed the trials that come to all. They 
have risen to a plane where they could be 
transmuted into blessings. 


AGE AND MENTALITY. 


OLD MEN OF GREAT POWER. 

One does not have to look far to find 
historical instances of old men wielding 
great power. Benjamin Franklin's best 
service to his country was rendered after 
he had reached 70. Palmerston was 
prime minister of England when he died 
at 81. Gladstone became premier for the 
fourth time at 83, and held the office for 
two years. Bismarck was 75 when the 
German emperor forced him from the 
chancellorship. Metternich also was 
driven from power at 75, and Crispi as¬ 
sumed the premiership of Italy at the same 
age. Talleyrand, dying at 84, had under 
successive French rulers been a power 
all his life. Pope Leo XIII. had no signs 
of intellectual decrepitude when he died 
of old age at 93. 


John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, 
after retiring from active life, were fruit¬ 
ful in counsel until death carried them 
off on the same day at the respective 
ages of 91 and 83. John Quincy Adams 
was a power in the house of representa¬ 
tives when stricken at 81. Henry Clay 
at 75 was still a leader in the land. 

ARTISTS OF ADVANCED AGE. 

In other walks of life there stand out 
among musicians Handel, the original 
“Grand Old Man,” who played the organ 
at a performance of his “Messiah” eight 
days before his death at 74, and Verdi, 
who, reaching the age of 87, was prolific 
almost to the last, and among painters the 
great Titian, who wielded his brush after 
he had passed his 98th birthday. 







BOOK OP THE TIMES 


292 


With some writers the idea of old age 
seems inseparably connected. Who 
thinks of Samuel Johnson, for instance, 
save as the ancient autocrat of Grub 
street; of Walter Savage Landor but as 
a bluff old lion, or of Samuel Rogers ex¬ 
cept as the nonagenarian giver of break 
fasts. Goethe’s name evokes the spectacle 
of the dying veteran with his cry for more 
light; Voltaire's that of his triumphal 
progress through Paris “with face shriv¬ 
eled to nothing,” in the year of his death; 
Swift's that of the mad old man expir¬ 
ing, “a driveler and a show.” 

One even associates the idea of age 
with some who were not really old—as. 
with Montaigne, who died at 59, or 
Thomas Fuller, who was only 53. 

For all death’s love of a shining mark, 
many an eminent author has reached a 
ripe old age, and often literary activity 
has lasted to the end, to the enrichment 
of posterity. Chaucer, who died at 77, 
did not write the “Canterbury Tales” till 
he was 63. That stout old Scotchman, 
George Buchanan, wrote his “De Jure 
Regni” in defense of popular rights at 
73, and lived four years longer. Cer¬ 
vantes, dying at 69, had finished his im¬ 
mortal “Don Quixote” but one year be¬ 
fore. Thomas Hobbes, who wrote his 
“Leviathan” at 63, lived to be 91. Izaak 
Walton’s “Angler” was published when 
he was 60, and other literary work helped 

THE CHILD 

Men must work and children must 
play; activity to the one is as important 
as to the other. These two expressions 
are not different, excepting that in play 
it is the exercise of this activity that forms 
the purpose of the exertion and rewards it 


to fill the remaining thirty years of his 
long life. Edmund Waller lived to 83, 
and Isaac Newton to be 85. 

John Home, the Scotch tragedian, who 
in the estimation of a youthful fellow- 
countryman had vanquished “Wullie 
Shakespeare,” died at 86; Horace Wal¬ 
pole at 80, Isaac Disraeli at 82, Jeremy 
Bentham at 85, and Wordsworth at 80. 
Of those dying in our own days Carlyle 
was 86, Ruskin 81, and Browning 77. 

Tennyson, whose age was 83, was 
tuneful to the end, and in “Crossing the 
Bar” left behind him a swan song of rare 
beauty. Victor Hugo lived to the same 
age, and to witness his apotheosis in the 
France that had exiled him. Herbert 
Spencer died at 83 almost with pen in 
hand. 

The American group of splendid, 
though far from savage, old men may 
fittingly conclude the list. Washington 
Irving lived to be 76 and wrote his life 
of Washington in his last years. George 
Bancroft died at 91, the concluding 
volume of his history appearing when he 
was 82. William Cullen Bryant was 84 
and Walt Whitman 73. Of the famous 
New England group Emerson died at 79, 
Longfellow at 75, Holmes at 86, Whit¬ 
tier at 85, and Lowell at 72. Hawthorne, 
dying at 60, was by comparison cut down 
in bis youth. 

AND PLAY. 

with joy, in work the outcome is the es¬ 
sential part. But, by tempering and 
blending these two purposes they may be¬ 
come almost one, as is often seen in the 
work of the artist. 

In the child thought is of value only 



PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


293 


as it realizes itself in action. It is through 
activity alone that the child becomes con¬ 
scious of his own possibilities and relates 
himself to the force he calls the world. 
For all experience is “just a stuff to try 
the soul’s strength on.” 

NURSERY A CHILD’S UNIVER¬ 
SITY. 

To many women in these days the nur¬ 
sery is a place of secondary importance— 
a fortunate corner to keep the children 
with the nurse so that they will not annoy 
the rest of the household. In their blind¬ 
ness they fail to realize that the nursery 
is a child's university; it is in his play 
that he gains those experiences that are 
the foundation of his whole life. No one 
but a mother rich in love and intelligence 
is worthy of directing this worthiest of 
schools. 

To assist the child in his self-activity 
nature has endowed him with the senses. 
The only way that these senses are to be 
trained so that the inner consciousness 
may be related with the outer world is 
through play. 

It is hard to say just when the child 
first begins to play; he is conscious of his 
own activity long before he has any desire 
to express life as it appears outside of 
himself. When he is still young he kicks 
with his legs, plays with his hands, fin¬ 
gers and lips. This activity is the be¬ 
ginning of play. 

LEARNING OF OUTSIDE LIFE. 

But as soon as the child’s body is suf¬ 
ficiently trained he shows a desire to rep¬ 
resent the internal outwardly. This is 
real play. Still he has not yet learned to 
distinguish the life outside of himself 
from his own. He grasps after the sun 


as if he could take it to himself; the peb¬ 
ble and block of wood have as much life 
to him as a flower or an animal. It is 
therefore quite natural if he hurts his head 
against the table, to strike the wood for 
hurting him. 

Before children can enjoy much play 
they must have some experience with 
color, form and sound. By playing with 
balls and blocks thev soon learn to dis- 
tinguish a sphere and a cube. By hand¬ 
ling balls of many colors they soon de¬ 
velop color sense. By playing with their 
rattles and making all sorts of queer 
noises they train their ears to distinguish 
sound. At this stage the nursery plays 
are all important. There never will be 
a baby who does not enjoy the playing of 
“This little pig went to market',’’ “Bye. 
Baby Bunting,” and “pattycake.” Mother 
Goose rhymes are an endless source of de¬ 
light, for their rhythm if for no other rea¬ 
son. 

TOYS DEVELOP IMAGINATION. 

These simpler games learned, children 
long for toys so that they can develop 
their activity and imagination more rap¬ 
idly. With a strong impulse for imita¬ 
tion, they long to enact the experiences 
of the people round about them. There¬ 
fore every little girl in every part of the 
world loves her dolls and all that is needed 
for the welfare of her babies. It is quite 
as natural for her to love her dolls and 
look after the welfare of her little ones 
as for her mother to care for her. She 
does not consider wasted time spent in 
the making of baby clothes, rocking her 
dolls to sleep, and singing them lullabies. 

A boy’s rocking horse and building 
blocks are the most wonderful objects 







294 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


brought to earth. With his horse he can 
canter over hill and dale and through the 
land inhabited by giants. If he has not 
a rocking horse at hand he will ride upon 
a bar or the leg of a chair. Driven by his 
imagination, they will carry him where- 
ever he wishes to go. With building 
blocks he can build wonderful bridges, 
stables and castles, and when once they 
are built they are filled with all sorts of 
people. Reality counts for little now; it 
is the imagination that needs stimulation, 
and fairy stories are the things children 
wish to hear about. 

Gradually their imagination is awak¬ 
ened to the point where they can play 
without toys. Little girls, instead of play¬ 
ing with their dolls, choose from their 
own numbers mamma, papa, and children. 
Interesting as these plays are for the girls, 
they count for little with boys. The 
horse and the steam car excite their im¬ 
agination. After children have played 
some time, there comes a desire to create 
for themselves. They want paints to try 
their hand in the use of color ; the clay 

THE JOY OF 

A SCIENTIST’S STUDY OF THEIR 
ENTHUSIASM. 

First of all we may learn from the child 
how to get the full enjoyment out of 
life. Many things which appear com¬ 
monplace and uninteresting to us may be¬ 
come sources of keen enjoyment to us and 
this—how to enjoy life in all its every¬ 
day and apparently monotonous incidents 
—is of the highest importance to our hap¬ 
piness. 

We have as a rule early lost the ability 
to enjoy the faculty of feeling happy even 


and sand pile to work in form. In winter 
time they delight in fashioning a snow 
man and house. 

Besides their playmates and toys they 
long for pets. A few years earlier the 
toy dolls and rabbits were worthy com¬ 
panions, but in the meantime they have 
learned that these toys are not real. They 
now ask for pets they can love and play 
with which will be subservient to their 
will. Little girls choose kittens and rab¬ 
bits as their best friends, but boys pre¬ 
fer dogs and mice. Every child should 
have at least one pet as a friend. Not 
only do the children soon get to love ani¬ 
mals, but the dog in turn soon learns the 
child's voice, the kitten the soft caress, 
and the rabbit to nibble for food. 

All too soon the play days of children 
are over and work begins. The joy of 
doing is at an end and knowledge be¬ 
comes the goal. Surely it is not to be 
wondered at that when this end is too 
strongly emphasized pleasure in work 
ceases. This effect must be counterbal¬ 
anced by plenty of play. 

CHILDREN. 

if we are not millionaires beset by spleen 
and neurastheny. Even the most normal 
man no longer possesses the ability to 
feel joy as does the child under all circum¬ 
stances. He has lost the faculty of turn¬ 
ing his misfortunes and adversities into 
happiness. If he misses a car or his train 
or is delayed on his way he is ready to 
sulk and be impatient all the rest of the 
day. 

We get nervous and cranky when it 
rains. When the sun shines we declare 
that we are dying from heat. If we go 




Executing two Japanese officers as spies. The Christian officer refused to he blindfolded. 















296 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


into the country we find it slow' and dull, 
and the noises of the city jar on our 
nerves. 

When we get a new dress or hat we 
envy those who can afford to get one that 
is more expensive. We have not entirely 
lost the sense of enjoyment; it is only 
slumbering, and it takes something strong 
and unusual to wake it up, and generally 
this is something that is out of our reach. 

Here is the point on which we may 
learn a valuable lesson from the child, 
who understands to perfection how to find 
ways and means to provoke joy. 

AN EXAMPLE OF PERFECT 
HAPPINESS. 

If you observe the children who sur¬ 
round you the first thing which strikes 
you is their perfect happiness, their sat¬ 
isfaction with themselves and their sur¬ 
roundings. The smallest of them are 
firmly convinced that their bed, their 
plate, their dress, their dolls are the pret¬ 
tiest in all the world, for the sole reason 
that they are theirs. 

“How beautiful it is, how warm it is, 
and what fine bows there are on it,” one 
of my little nieces said one day of a rather 
shabby looking muff which she carried. 
“And just because it is mine,” she added. 
She admired it only because it belonged 
to her. 

My own little child of four years covers 
a slip of paper with pencil marks and tri¬ 
umphantly runs over to show it to me. 

“Read it,” he cries. “I am sure I have 
written something very pretty.” He does 
not know what his pencil marks mean, 
but does not for a moment doubt that 
they must mean something beautiful, be¬ 


cause he has made them with his own lit¬ 
tle fingers. 

The daughter of Dr. Max Nordau, the 
famous author, an unusually bright child 
of three, had a most characteristic way of 
expressing her contentment with herself 
by adding her own name, Maxa, to any¬ 
thing which pleased her. To designate 
a beautiful tree she said “a Maxa-tree,” a 
book with fine pictures was a “Maxa- 
book,” and she had “Maxa-gardens,” 
“Maxa-flowers” and “Maxa-dogs.” 

Her name, her own self, was to her 
the embodiment of everything that was 
beautiful. 

Everybody knows how children love to 
brag and how boundless is their ambition, 
a fact which has its reason 4 n their van¬ 
ity and self-contentment. To become a 
king, a general or a count is the easiest 
thing in the world to them, and they only 
have to make up their minds to become 
one of these exalted personages, and,if 
they a few minutes afterward become ban¬ 
dits, robbers or coachmen it is not from 
modesty, but because the personality of 
a bandit, robber or coachman momenta¬ 
rily appears more fascinating to them 
than that of a king. 

The most commonplace things and in¬ 
cidents become sources of joy to them, 
everything looks cheerful and bright to 
them, because they do not derive their 
joy from their surroundings, but have 
the elements of joy in their own selves. I 
have observed this hundreds of times in 
my own child, who in everything mentally 
and physically is an average child, but 
the faculty of enjoying himself is so 
strong in him that it is marvelous. 

If. for instance, he hears a bell, he stops 
and listens with a smile, even if it is not 






PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


297 


the dinner bell, and when it happens to 
be the dinner bell his joy is boundless. 

DELIGHTS OF COMMONPLACE 
THINGS. 

Another most interesting amusement is 
to move the door of a closet back and 
forth, or to jump through a ray of sun¬ 
light which falls through the window into 
the room. As a rule, he dislikes intensely 
to leave his toys and our pleasant com¬ 
pany to be put to bed, but if I tell him he 
is to play hide-and-seek under his cover¬ 
let he will run toward his bedroom ra¬ 
diantly happy. It is the same with his 
bath—he hates the sensation which the 
cold water gives him, but if I tell him he 
is a little fish, which can swim and splash 
around in the nice, clear water, he forgets 
entirely the unpleasant change of tem¬ 
perature. 

At the table the mere sight of the lus¬ 
cious grapes, oranges and peaches of the 
dessert is a real joy to him, just as a 
painting by Leonardo da V inci or a statue 
by Michael Angelo is to us. He loves to 
have me cut his bread into little cubes, 
which he throws into his soup plate and 
which his imagination changes into ships 
floating on the ocean. He keenly enjoys 
the sight of his own face reflected in the 
hollow of a bright spoon, and when he is 
through eating he never forgets to tell 
himself that he will soon have another 
meal. 

When I take him out for a walk it is 
the same thing; then he will gather chest¬ 
nuts or pebbles, or he will jump across a 
space of maybe a foot, exclaiming proud¬ 


ly that he knows how to fly, and the show 
windows of the stores are inexhaustible 
sources of delight to him. 

Now there is nothing to prevent grown 
people from enjoying the same pleasant 
sensations. To be sure, the gathering of 
pebbles or chestnuts has lost its charm to 
us, but we still have the beauty of the 
scenery which surrounds us, the changing 
lights of sunshine or rain on trees or walls 
and roof, the clouds and the sky, the 
throng of people in the street whose faces 
often give you a key to their souls and 
character; but, no, “we have no time” for 
observations of this kind. Our imagina¬ 
tion needs stronger stimulants, exciting 
events, unusual scenery, to be set in mo¬ 
tion, but only because we ourselves have 
allowed it to lose the sensitiveness and 
buoyancy which it originally had. 

And still, contentment and joy are nec¬ 
essary to our welfare, mental as well as 
physical. We all know that when we feel 
happy and satisfied we eat better, sleep 
better, feel better in every way, are more 
optimistic, so that we overlook many little 
unpleasantnesses which we would enlarge 
on when in our usual morose and cranky 
humor. 

The child understands how to make the 
best of everything, so that it is always in 
the mood which is best for its organism, 
and this we would do well to imitate. We 
should learn to create joy for ourselves 
by trying to look at the pleasant side of 
everything, and we would soon feel the 
immense benefit we would derive from 
the experiment. 



208 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


GALLANTS AND FLIRTS. 


What shall we do with our “Major 
Whites” ? 

The “Majors” are handsome men, very 
handsome, and very winning men, -who 
appoint themselves the entertainers of 
other men's wives merely as a matter of 
friendship. If there is a Major White 
calling at your number, what are you do¬ 
ing with him? If you are a Major White 
what is your view of the case? 

A man who calls himself “A Perplexed 
Husband” has written an appeal to a 
newspaper, and it represents such a com¬ 
mon source of misery and divorce that 
the letter has been reprinted and com¬ 
mented upon in most of the principal 
newspapers of the United States and 
England. He asks what he shall do with 
the particular Major White that has 
found companionship in his home. In the 
appeal he asks if “intimate friendships 
and frequent meetings between married 
men and women with others than their 
own wives and husbands are proper?” 
And if it would be wise for him to ac¬ 
quaint his wife with the fact that her 
friendship with Major White is intensely 
disagreeable to the perplexed one. 

The writer of the letter is not quite 
sure that the Major is a very discreet 
man. Nor is his mind quite settled as to 
whether the Major is a rascal. 

TURNING THE TABLES. 

And there is another phase of the ques¬ 
tion which is equally puzzling to the man 
whose wife likes Major White's com¬ 
pany. Would he he justified, as his wife 
asserts, in kindling a little flirtation with 


another pretty woman ? In short, ought 
he turn the tables by becoming a Major 
White himself? 

Then again : If a man is the husband of 
an ugly wife, is there an> excuse, under 
any circumstances, for his seeking the 
company of a neighbor’s pretty wife? 
That is the very thing the Major is doing. 

And yet again: Has a good wife any 
excuse in the world for striving to please 
any man except her husband? This par¬ 
ticular wife tries to please the Major first, 
her husband next. 

To the Editor.—For reasons which 
will appear obvious, I write you without 
a date line. My wife is an exceedingly 
attractive woman, mentally and physi¬ 
cally. A few months ago she met a gen¬ 
tleman whom I will call Major White, be- 
cause'that is not his name. He is, I think, 
the handsomest man I ever saw. She and 
the Major soon became great friends, and 
he has been at my house frequently since 
then, sometimes when I was away, for I 
am so involved in professional affairs that 
I cannot attempt to participate in one- 
tenth of the social events which largely 
occupy my wife’s time. 

Of late I have felt vaguely disturbed 
by some things I have noticed, which pos¬ 
sibly should not annoy me at all. Permit 
me to rehearse them: 

i. My wife dresses her hair in a style 
which she knows I do not admire, but 
which Major White called to her atten¬ 
tion as ideal, and which she adopted at 
his suggestion. This seemed to me im¬ 
pertinence in him, and in my heart I re¬ 
sented it. 



PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS , CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


299 


2. When Major White was called 
away to a certain city on business she ex¬ 
pressed to me a desire to visit friends 
there at the same time, and he arranged 
to take her out to the theater and to din¬ 
ner while there—all in my presence, and 
seemingly entirely as a matter of course, 
without a thought of impropriety. I gave 
no hint of my profound conviction that 
such a program was indiscreet, but I took 
care that my wife's proposed visit should 
become impossible. 

3. Major White is often my wife’s es¬ 
cort home from late social functions 
which I am unable to attend. His wife 
rarely goes out, and, by the way, is an 
unusually homely woman. 

4. I cannot but notice a marked in¬ 
crease in the vivacity and amiability of 
my wife when Major White is with her, 
and she often blushes when in conversa¬ 
tion with him. 

5. Major White's demeanor toward 
me is curiously variable. Sometimes he 
is effusively cordial, at others stiff and 
distant. And there seems to be an in¬ 
definable change in my wife’s manner 
toward me. I feel myself a bore to her 
occasionally. 

6. My wife is always present at places 
where Major White is a guest, and has 
been little inclined to go to places where 
I found him absent. 

7. There is a talented and pretty 
woman in our social circle who has shown 
a fancy for me, and has repeatedly in¬ 
vited me to call on her. I should have 
been pleased to go with my wife, but I 
have felt a repugnance toward going- 
alone, because T doubt the propriety of an 
intimate friendship with any woman other 


than my wife. My wife, of course, knows 
this lady's kindly disposition toward me, 
and rallies me constantly because I do not 
call upon her. She tells me it would not 
only be proper, but that courtesy demands 
it of me. She has even said, in a joking 
way, that a flirtation between this ladv 
and myself would be very amusing to her. 

I shall not attempt to dodge a fact 
which no doubt is already apparent to 
you—that I am tinged with jealousy. I 
have always regarded jealousy as an ig¬ 
noble and contemptible passion, and I as¬ 
sure you that my wife does not dream 
how closely I have scanned her relations 
with Major White. It is only an intangi¬ 
ble fear of ultimate trouble and a con¬ 
sciousness of the possibility of grave mis¬ 
take that constrain me to write for coun¬ 
sel in the unprecedented situation, which 
now confronts me. 

Are intimate friendships and frequent 
meetings between married men and wom¬ 
en with others than their own wives and 
husbands proper ? 

Is the conduct of Major White and my 
wife, as described by me, such that 1 
should disapprove it? 

Would it be wise for me to acquaint 
my wife with the fact that her friendship 
with Major White is intensely disagree¬ 
able to me? 

Understand, please, that during the ten 
years of my married life my affection for 
and trust in my wife have never wavered, 
but lately I have feared that the admira¬ 
tion and compliment, if not the love of 
another and a very able and winning 
man, may have placed her in an insecure 
position. 


A Perplexed Husband. 



300 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The newspaper published this letter of replies varied all the way from “get an 
and asked its correspondents to answer axe” to “get a divorce.” Most of them 
the perplexed husband. The thousands denounced all three as fools. 

MARRIED HAPPINESS. 


In the good old days before women 
were emancipated they were content to 
stay at home and minister to the needs 
of their lord, their children and their 
household. Matinees, summer sales and 
afternoon teas were unknown. Our 
grandmothers were not always racking 
their brains for some fresh diversion, 
some new way of killing time. They 
lived simple, healthy, frugal lives, and 
(in spite of the swooning they are repre¬ 
sented in the novels of the period as in¬ 
dulging in) had a more tranquil nervous 
system. 

The woman of today is constantly 
craving for excitement. If she be of the 
lower middle class she passes her nights 
in heated salesrooms, bidding frenziedly 
for articles she does not want; if she is of 
the upper middle class she disports her¬ 
self upon some promenade, or wears her¬ 
self to pieces over parish work. To sit 
at home is the only thing she detests. 

Now this is unfortunate, because man 
(a far more conservative animal than 
woman by the way) likes nothing better 
than to sit by his own fireside, with his 
feet on his own fender, smoking the pipe 
of peace. While his fiancee pictures mat¬ 
rimony as a whirl of calls and parties, he 
dreams of a quiet haven sheltered from 
every wind which blows, a place where, 
once the turmoil of the world shut out, 
he can rest and refresh himself for the re¬ 
curring struggle. 

If you really wish to make your mar¬ 


ried life happy, you must give up all 
thoughts of your own pleasure, you must 
abandon the idea that rushing to and fro 
is desirable. You must settle down— 
never mind if it sounds dull—and de¬ 
termine to make a home for your hus¬ 
band. Never mind about the carpets or 
the curtains; these count for nothing; 
make it a place where the sunshine of 
serenity shines, a place where worries are 
kissed away and cares forgotten, a place 
where cross words and angry looks never 
come, a place where discontent cannot 
live, and, above all, a peaceful place, 
where he may gather strength for the 
struggle always going on—the struggle 
of life. 

THE KIND OF GIRLS THAT MAY 
BE HAPPILY MARRIED. 

There are few girls who seem to realize 
what a man really requires in a wife. It 
is necessary that a girl who wishes to be 
happily married to a good and true man 
should remember that in choosing a life 
partner a man invariably decides on a 
woman who, were she a man, would be 
his best friend and closest companion. 

Some men, of course, marry their op¬ 
posites. But the majority incline toward 
the woman whose tastes, characteristics 
and sympathies are identical with their 
own. There are many girls who cannot 
take an interest in a man’s pursuits and 
ambitions in life. They live in a purely 
feminine world, so to speak, composed 




Waiting- in line for tickets to the public bath in Chicago. Showing the interest of boys in this most useful of public utilities. 



















302 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


mainly of dress, fashion and amusement. 
Occasionally they may dabble in domes¬ 
tic work; but they regard the latter in the 
light of a novelty, instead of something 
to be seriously undertaken and thoroughly 
learned, in order to fit them for the posi¬ 
tion of wife which they may one day at¬ 
tain. 

To them a man’s work and ambitions 
are as difficult to understand as the Greek 
and Hebrew languages. They hope the 
man in whom they may be interested will 
succeed in what he wishes to do, but be¬ 
yond that they are not capable of thinking 
or acting with him. 

A man wants more than this from the 
girl he is to marry. She must sympathize 
with him and his ideals, and not only 
sympathize, but gain some intimate 
knowledge of his work and ambitions, so 
that he may be able to talk to her and be 
understood. By tactfully inviting a man 
to talk over his worries and difficulties, a 
girl can learn all she needs about his in¬ 
terests in life. And it is surprising how 
a man will be drawn to her in conse¬ 
quence. It is to her he will come to talk 
over his triumphs and failures, knowing 
full well that he will obtain delightful 
praise, or sympathy and comforting 
words, which will encourage him to make 
another start. 

The simpering, gushing, frivolous girl 
does not appeal to the average man. She 
appears to he too selfish. There seems to 
be little concern or thought for others in 
her nature. Of course, there are few men 
who like what may be termed the thor¬ 
oughly serious-minded girl. She must he 
one who can amuse, and who exhibits at 
times those feminine foibles which make 
a woman so dear to a man's heart. At 


the same time she must be capable of 
deeper feelings, and the girl who can 
combine these characteristics has by far 
the best chance of marrying. 

The practical-minded girl, as well as 
the serious-minded, is much sought after 
by men in search of a wife. A man 
knows a girl has domestic qualities when 
he hears that she makes her own frocks, 
and thinks a thing may be as fashionable 
if it is inexpensive as if it is costly. If 
she can tell how a dinner should be 
cooked, whether she can cook herself or 
not; if she knows the value of ready 
money and has a horror of being in debt, 
then he knows that as a wife she will save 
money instead of spending it lavishly and 
recklessly. 

And, young girls, let us tell you, be 
circumspect in your conduct at home, 
more especially when a prospective lover 
visits you. He knows, beyond all possi¬ 
bility of doubt, that the girl who is the 
best sister and daughter will make the 
best wife. 

COUNTESS RUSSELL’S IDEA OF 
WOMAN AND THE HOME. 

The chief sphere of woman’s labor— 
that of the household—began to be de¬ 
stroyed by the progress of machinery. The 
spinning, weaving, needlework, baking, 
jam-making have all been transferred to 
the factory, and no public effort has been 
made to open up new occupations for 
women. One can see that a different 
class of women is employed in the factory 
from the middle-class women who last 
century did the domestic work in their 
own homes. 

Women have been forced from their 
homes in order to make a livelihood, and 






PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 303 


the majority of them still are looking for 
work and doing it not for amusement's 
sake. We have not been able vet to have 

J 

all occupations open to us, and even in 
the ones we have forced ourselves into we 
labor under great disadvantages, such as 
journalism or medicine. 

We are constantly hearing that the 
proper sphere of woman is the home, hut 
it would seem that the wise ones of the 
age might make suggestions more to the 
point by showing how women may earn 
a living in the home. 

THE USE OF DRESS. 

There are many persons who spend less 
than a hundred dollars a year for their 
clothes and always look well dressed. 
There are men who spend ten times as 
much for their clothes and never look 
well dressed. The secret of good dress¬ 
ing is attention to the small things. An 
expensive suit, supplemented with dirty 
linen and unpolished shoes, looks shabby. 
A comparatively cheap suit, set off with 
shining shoes and immaculate collar and 
cuffs, gives the wearer the appearance of 
being well groomed. Old trousers care¬ 
fully pressed and cleaned look better than 
newer trousers which are dirty and baggy. 
A spotless last year's hat looks better 
than a this year's tile which has upon it 
all this year’s dirt. To appear well 
dressed costs pains rather than money. 

Personal neatness has a commercial as 
well as an esthetic value. An employer 
does not like to have about him men who 
look unkempt and seedy. They make it 
appear that he either will not or cannot 
pay good wages or salaries—that he is 
either close fisted or unprosperous—and 
thereby his business is injured. Other 


things equal, the young clerk or book¬ 
keeper or salesman who, no matter how 
small his pay, always keeps himself look¬ 
ing clean and well dressed, is the one who 
will be selected for promotion* Clothes 
don't make the man. They have helped 
in the making of many men. 

BEAUTY COLONY IN RUSSIA. 

At the time of the Russo-Turkish war 
M. Reshetnikoff, struck with the inferior, 
ill-nourished physique of many recruits, 
set aside annually out of his large fortune 
the sum of 10,000 roubles for the pur¬ 
pose of eliminating the unfit by encourag¬ 
ing marriage only between young people 
of exceptional beauty, health and intelli¬ 
gence. 

To attain this end he employed as 
workers on his estate only the handsom¬ 
est and healthiest villagers. These he en¬ 
couraged to enter upon matrimony by 
free grants of land, payment of all mar¬ 
riage fees and an annuity of 50 roubles a 
year for every child born. 

He succeeded in removing from his es¬ 
tate, by rather harsh means, all deformed 
and sickly persons and attracted hand¬ 
some giants from all parts of the prov¬ 
ince by granting them valuable privi¬ 
leges. Those who refused to marry the 
partners he selected were unceremoni¬ 
ously deported. 

Since the institution of this human 
beauty farm forty model marriages have 
taken place and over 100 children have 
been born, nearly all of them being im¬ 
mensely superior to the average Russian 
peasant children in strength and beauty. 
The girls in particular are remarkable for 
their graceful carriage and lithe, active 
forms. 




304 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


A marriage has just been celebrated 
there with exceptional display, owing to 
the fact that the bridegroom and his bride 
are the first couple both of whom sprang 
from unions arranged by M. Reshetni- 
koff. 


The bridegroom, a handsome peasant 
named Yasalieff, of splendid physique, 
and the bride, a lovely girl of 18, were 
driven to church in M. ReshetnikofFs 
carriage, and given as dowry a large 
wooden cottage and a plot of land. 


SIDE LIGHTS ON CHARACTER BUILDING. 


OBEDIENCE. 

One of the first and most important 
lessons of life is the lesson of obedience. 
Not to know how to obey, not to under¬ 
stand the obligatory grip of duty, not to 
have tasted the hardening discipline of 
subjection to right authority, is the same 
thing as not to know how to rule, not 
to be able to point out duty to others and 
to inspire them to its performance. 

Obeying when obedience is hard is the 
right school of character. It develops 
hardness and solidity. It makes men firm 
and dependable. It is the tempering 
which makes the metal fit for use. One 
of the great evils of our day is that this 
is not seen. We have come to dislike 
authority as such. Parents even adopt 
the theory of relaxing all bands of duty 
in the care of their children, and leaving 
things to their reason. If the children 
do not see it, let them wait until it is 
clear to them. Undoubtedly there is 
such a thing as arbitrariness and des¬ 
potism, but there is also a loose and law¬ 
less freedom which is vet more fatal to 
character. Young people and boys and 
o-irls should train themselves in duty do- 
ing. They should have the highest stand¬ 
ards of what God expects of them in char¬ 
acter and service, and they should compel 
themselves to live up to these standards. 
The harder it is, the better for them. We 


ought all to be more exacting of our¬ 
selves than any one else can be of us, and 
we should be our own sternest rulers. We 
shall find one of the rarest joys of life 
in this self-sovereignty in the interest of 
duty in the success with which we are 
able to subject ourselves to obedience. 
To obey when duty is easy and to re¬ 
fuse when duty is hard is to exalt 
ease above duty, to put God's claims, 
which are the claims of duty, second to 
our own claims, which are the claims of 
ease. In other words, it is to make God 
subject to us. The voice of duty is His 
voice. To refuse to hear it is to refuse 
Him. It is when obedience is hard and 
we rise above temptation to neglect, and 
do our duty, whatever the cost, that we 
rise highest in our likeness to Him. To 
obey only when we want to is not obedi¬ 
ence at all, unless we always want to. 
Obedience is the only valid evidence of 
love and faith, and the harder the test 
the more splendid the testimony. 

LIES. 

CLASSIFICATION OF PROFESSOR JOHN 
STUART BLACKIE. 

1. Lies of carelessness, from loose ob¬ 
servation and hasty generalization—any 
hour's talk full of them. 

2. Lies of cowardice, from fear of 
facing the truth, as when a man labor- 





PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


,305 


ing under a dangerous disease reasons 
himself into the belief that he is quite 
well. 

3. Lies of politeness, very common 
with women; taking the sting out of the 
truth, for fear of giving offense. 

4. Lies of flattery, from a benevolent 
desire to please, or from a selfish desire 
to gain something by pleasing. 

5. Lies of self-glorification, magnify¬ 
ing our own virtues or the virtues of the 
class to which we belong. This includes 
patriotic lies, sectarian lies, and almost 
any kind of lie that masks selfishness 
under a grand name. 

6. Lies of malevolent hostility, con¬ 
sciously intended to deceive an adver¬ 
sary, as in war. 

7. Lies of self-defense, to save nature 
when a force is put upon her ; or to save 


one's life where honor is not concerned. 

8. Lies of benevolence, as to save 
another's life, as when a righteous man 
flies to you for concealment, hounded by 
his persecutors, and you say he is not in 
your house. 

9. Lies of convention, as when you 
call a man a gentleman who is not a 
gentleman in any proper sense of the 
word; or when you call the King, in the 
Prayer Book, a most religious and 
gracious sovereign, when he may be a 
great blackguard; or when you call your¬ 
self “your humble servant." when you 
are as proud as Lucifer. 

10. Lies of modesty, when you say 
you cannot do what you can do. to avoid 
'the appearance of forwardness. 

11. Lies. 


THEORIES ANCIENT AND MODERN UPON THE 

CAUSE OF EVIL. 


In the religious consciousness of the 
race there is no problem which has laid 
hold of human thought and feeling with 
greater force than the problem of evil. It 
has been the ever-recurring spectre at the 
banquet of human thought. The most 
ancient philosophy that we know busied 
itself with this problem, and the latest 
also has this for its leading theme. It 
has been the minor strain of all the poets, 
and the tragic element in all the novelists. 
It has been the great enigma with which 
all religions have wrestled, and which 
moralists, theologians and philosophers 
face to-day. Certainly it cannot be un¬ 
interesting to consider briefly what solu¬ 
tions have been offered to explain this 
profound mystery of our existence. 


In the nature-religions which indicate 
man's earliest thought, and where not 
moral but physical evil is the object of 
attention, the solution is found in the 
action of supersensible beings who are 
supposed to be the causes of all physical 
phenomena. The idea of second causes 
not being developed, all material opera¬ 
tions are ascribed to divinities in them 
or back of them whose character is re¬ 
flected in their work. These divinities are 
scarcely, in most instances, developed 
personalities, but spectres of the desert, 
titans, giants, half-human monsters, be¬ 
ings in the form of serpents and dragons, 
comparatively limited in power, and yet 
capable of many mischievous acts. Thev 
were only moderately feared, so that 






300 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


after a calamity men went out to fight 
them, seeking by shooting their arrows 
in the air and uttering their warwhoops 
to frighten them. The act of the Indian 
medicine man, who, by dancing and beat¬ 
ing his kettle., seeks to drive the evil 
spirits away, is a naive manifestation of 
this thought. 

In the more pessimistic and highly de¬ 
veloped religions this conception of the 
origin of evil takes on a more serious 
form. Here these malevolent beings as¬ 
sume a strong personification and stand 
as opponents of the good, often finding 
their head in a sovereign god of evil who 
stands over against the god of life and 
light as an equal or even stronger rival. 
This evil god goes forth to despoil the' 
kingdom of the good, and inflict injuries 
upon men. As a consequence he and his 
emissaries are feared, which often leads 
to endeavors to gain his favor by propitia¬ 
tion and sacrifice. This is the origin of 
devil-worship, common especially among 
many of the African tribes. In other 
religions the antithesis between the two 
chief powers becomes more marked and 
developed. Here we have a dualism, 
such as we see in the beautiful sun-myth 
of Egypt, which represents Osiris, the 
god of life, as slain by Set, the Typhon, 
who brings on the Egyptians all the evils 
they most fear. In the German and Per¬ 
sian religions these conflicts are con¬ 
tinued into the present age. However, 
in both there will be an ultimate triumph 
of the good—in the German religion by 
the destruction of the world and the aris¬ 
ing of a new world in which peaceful gods 
will rule; and in the Persian by Arahmin 
being overcome at last by the Deliverer. 

Another explanation for the origin of 


evil is that which attributes it to a fatality 
in the world. In Brahminism, for ex¬ 
ample, the free action of man is emphati¬ 
cally denied. We are ever being im¬ 
pelled by some antecedent necessity. Man 
“feels himself the toy of an unknown 
power.” He is a part of the eternal whole 
and but one of the modes of its life. 
There is no such thing as evil in the 
world, as indeed there cannot be in any 
pantheistic scheme. All that man can do 
is free himself from his miseries by more 
complete unity with the divine. As in¬ 
dividual life is extinguished evil ceases 
to be. In the poets of Greece we have 
an exhibition of the fatalism to which I 
refer. Homer makes even Jupiter him¬ 
self bow before the inexorable law of 
fate. 

Hesiod, in his poem on the ages of 
man, passes men through various periods 
in which they descend from happiness to 
extreme misery. There is no cause for 
this other.than that it is in the order of 
things; a sheer necessity of fate. Bud¬ 
dhism also finds its explanation in the 
very nature of existence. It is the con¬ 
summation of fatalism, making the very 
essence of conscious life to consist in 
suffering. 

Somewhat similar to this view is that 
which locates evil in matter. This is the 
explanation of its origin given by ancient 
philosophy. Beginning with the So- 
cratic school we find a dualism, not be¬ 
tween two orders of gods, but between 
matter and spirit. Matter cannot be fully 
subdued to the workings of the divine 
reason, and in its resistance provides the 
necessary limitation, which is the ground 
of evil. All that is joined to matter is 
disfigured and corrupted, and this is es- 




I'm, 



Japanese merchant and two Korean coolies carry a whole store upon their backs and keep close up with the army. 
























308 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


pecially true of the soul as planted in an 
earthly body. Says Plato: “So long as 
we have the body with us the soul is 
coupled with this evil; we can never per¬ 
fectly attain the goal of our desires; 
namely, truth.” It is not necessary to 
follow this doctrine out as it was devel¬ 
oped by Philo, the Gnostics and neo- 
Platonists of the first Christian centuries. 

Another explanation given for the 
origin of evil makes it arise in a defect 
of deity, either of wisdom or goodness. 
The first idea is given in the legend of 
the Kamtschatkans, that evil came from 
the stupidity of the creator of the worlds 
who, but for the wiser counsels of his 
wife, would have perpetrated still greater 
follies. 

The doctrine of Schopenhauer that evil 
arises from the irrationality of the will, 
which is the creative principle, is not 
much different. The second idea that evil 
results from a deficiency in the divine 
goodness, is a doctrine more than once 
suggested by the poets of Greece. 
Sophocles, in his tragedies, repeatedly ex¬ 
presses grave doubts as to the justice of 
the world. In the group of legends about 
Prometheus we are told the Titan is 
chained to the rock because he has sought 
to advance the conditions of men and give 
an impulse to a higher civilization. The 
race has also to suffer for the act by which 
Prometheus has made their advancement 
possible, for Pandora is sent to man with 
her box, from which, when Epimetheus 
opens it, there flies forth into the world all 
the evils which afflict mankind. Here we 
have the source of evil depicted as arising 
from a jealous god, who was opposed to 
human progress and advancement. The 
doctrine of predestination in Moham- 


medism is often stated in so bald a form 
that it really reduces to an imputation of 
the divine goodness. Says Omar: 
“Whom the Lord guideth, him none can 
mislead; and whom the Lord misleadeth, 
for him there is no guide.” 

Still another theory for the origin of 
evil, grounds it in human culpability. This 
idea has been presented in various forms. 
Thus some have located evil in a trans¬ 
gression of man against the deity at the 
beginning. This idea is found in various 
religions where the belief in the divine 
personality is held. The Persians had a 
second theory of the origin of evil along 
this line. The old Aryan conception was 
that Yima, the first man, living in beatic 
happiness in the paradise of Aieyana- 
Vaedja, committed a sin, the consequence 
of which burdens his descendants. In the 
Edda, Adhumea is beguiled by Loki with 
apples, into a wood, where she is sud¬ 
denly carried off by a giant and happiness 
no longer abode in paradise. In Aeschy¬ 
lus and Sophocles the misery of man is a 
result of the past; it comes as the conse¬ 
quence of some ancient curse which rests 
on the ancestors of the race. Thus in the 
ills that came upon the family of Aga¬ 
memnon, the first link in the Ions: un- 
broken chain of crime and catastrophe is 
the unnatural sin of Thyostes, the father 
of mankind. Indeed, we find again and 
again in Greek literature vengeance being 
visited on others because of the sins of 
ancestors, as the curse of Maule, in the 
“House of Seven Gables” follows the un¬ 
lucky family of Pyncheon. The only ex¬ 
planation of evil given in the Old Testa¬ 
ment is that which is here mentioned. 
Paul also sanctions the theory by teaching 
that Adam sinned and thus evil and death 




PROSPERITY . HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 


309 


came into the world by sin. The prin¬ 
ciple of solidarity, however, is not car¬ 
ried so far in the later prophets, in the 
book of Job and in the New Testament, 
as to overlook the element of individual 
responsibility. So also in Christian 
theology, the transgression of Adam gives 
the hereditary bias and impulse, but the 
real act of evil is the voluntary act of the 
free agent, choosing his own will in op¬ 
position to the Infinite Reason. 

An entirely different conception from 
that just mentioned accounts for the 
origin of evil on the basis of a gradual 
deterioration of the race from a high con¬ 
dition to a savage state. Many myth¬ 
ologies start the race with a golden age, 
a time when men were supremely good 
and supremely happy, and then pass them 
through a series of subsequent ages, each 
worse than the preceding, until man 
reaches the bottom at last. Among the 
Aryan nations this conception was very 
fully developed. Men are to live for 12,- 
000 divine years and pass through four 
epics—the age of perfection, the age of 
triple sacrifices, the age of doubt and the 
present age of perdition. I11 Hesiod we 
have the succession of gold, silver, brass 
and iron ages, in each of which there is 
greater deterioration. Zoroastrian maz- 
deism also has the universe continue 12.- 
000 years and pass through four stages, 
in each of which man sinks in the scale 
of moral being. 

A theory which we can only touch 
upon accounts for the existence of evil 
by asserting a misuse of freedom in some 
pre-existing state. This theory is found 
in a mythical form in the Indian doctrine 
of metempsychosis. It is also suggested 
in Plato. It appears in the religious spec¬ 


ulations of the Jewish and Christian 
Alexandrians, and in the last century 
found an able advocate in Julius Mueller. 
I11 a more philosophic form it appears in 
the writings of Kant, Schilling and 
Schopenhauer. 

The last theory we shall mention is that 
which makes evil the necessary opposite 
of goodness or a phase of finite limita¬ 
tion. Such theories have been numerous, 
and a mere reference to them must suffice. 
Spinoza said good and evil are merely 
subjective notions of reflection, evil being 
simply a defect of knowledge or insight. 
Leibnitz, in his “Theodicy,” makes evil to 
consist in the metaphysical imperfection 
of man. As finite, man cannot he per¬ 
fect; for finiteness signifies limitation in 
power and knowledge, and where this ex¬ 
ists there will be error. Man will often, 
in the hurry of life, direct his attention to 
other than the true good. Kant also tells 
us that the creature is unable to realize his 
ideal life under the conditions of his pres¬ 
ent limitations. The only difference be¬ 
tween good and evil is one of degree. 
The origin of evil is simply human in¬ 
ability or want of power. Hegel de¬ 
fines evil as “the adherence of the spirit 
to its naturalness,” by which he means 
that, instead of making the universal good 
its goal, the soul looks to its own desires, 
greeds and passions. Thus we have 
many testimonies among the great think¬ 
ers of the world that evil is a conse¬ 
quence of human immaturity and finite¬ 
ness. 

The true explanation of the origin of 
evil would contain elements of several of 
these theories. It arises out of the condi¬ 
tions of our finite life. The self, with its 
hereditary impulses, is sensuous incite- 




310 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ments, its interaction with a historic 
community, in which the ideal of the good 
has not been realized, its limitations be¬ 
cause of its lack of knowledge and ex¬ 
perience, fails to regulate its conduct by 
the highest conception of the good, but 
constantly chooses particular ends agree¬ 
able to self, rather than those universal 
ends which express the rational and 


moral ideal. The particular will, limited 
to some desire of the self, is evil, for it 
is opposed to the Divine Will, which is 
the expression of the absolute good and 
the final moral order. When, then, the 
preacher states that selfishness is the 
source of sin, he has quite accurately hit 
the mark. 


THE GERMAN EMPEROR WILLIAM’S ADDRESS TO HIS SONS ON 
PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY.—DELIVERED TO WILHELM AND 
OSCAR ON THE DAY OF THEIR CONFIRMATION. 


My Dear Sons —At the present time, 
in which we are about to express our 
congratulations that you have joined us 
in the congregation of the Lord as men 
who have a fervid desire to work therein. 
I should like, as your father, to make a 
few remarks. This day, in a spiritual 
sense, is for you similar to the day on 
which the officer or the soldier takes the 
oath to his colors. As princes of the 
royal house you have the privilege of 
wearing a uniform from the tenth year 
of your age. To this I desire to com¬ 
pare your christening. You are selected 
as fighters for Christ. With the present 
day you have, so to speak, come of age 
in your faith. The defense and weapon, 
as well as the armor, which you will have 
to use, have been taught you and pre¬ 
pared for you by a skilled hand. Their 
use in all the situations of life is left to 
you from now on. But while in this re¬ 
spect it will be possible to also further in¬ 
struct you, finally, however, everyone 
must learn for themselves how to use 
weapons. It is also the same with the 
spiritual ones which are entrusted to him. 
I intentionally speak in a military sense, 


as I presume you know the beautiful par¬ 
able in which the Christian is compared 
to a warrior, in which the weapons which 
the Lord has placed at his disposal are left 
to his choice. You will certainly find 
later on an opportunity to use one or the 
other of those weapons; and you will 
surely carry out what you have this day 
so nicely promised in your pledge. Your 
religious teacher has emphasized—and 
quite correctly—to you the idea of what 
is to be expected from you; that is, that 
you must become “personalities.” This 
is just the point on which, in my opinion, 
the most depends for a Christian in the 
struggle of life. For there can be do 
doubt whatever, when referring to the 
person of our Lord, we can say: He has 
been the “most personal personality” 
(die personlic/istc Personlichkeit) that 
has ever wandered about on this earth 
among the children of men. 

In school you have read and heard and 
you will read and hear in the future, of 
many great men, savants, statesmen, 
kings, princes and also poets. You have 
read words and sayings of many of them, 
which ennobled you and even filled you 





PROSPERITY, HAPPINESS, CHARACTER AND SUCCESS 311 


with enthusiasm. To be sure! Is there 
a German youth who would not feel in¬ 
spired and enthusiastic by songs such as 
those of our poet Koerner ? And yet they 
are all but the words of men. Not one of 
them is to be compared to any single 
word spoken by our Lord. And this is 
said to you so that you will he in a posi¬ 
tion to defend it as soon as you find 
yourselves in the struggle of life and hear 
exchanges of opinions and also exchange 
opinions yourselves regarding religion 
and, above all, regarding the person of 
our Savior. The word of a man has 
never been aide to uniformly inspire peo¬ 
ple of all races and of all nations to at¬ 
tain the same aim, to endeavor to be like 
him and even to give their lives for him. 
This miracle can only be explained from 
the fact that the words he spoke were the 
words from the living God, which awaken 
life and which remain alive even after 
a period of many thousands of years, 
while the words of the savants are long 
forgotten. 

Now, when I look back on my per¬ 
sonal experience. I can only assure you, 
and your experience will be the same, that 
the cardinal and main object of human 
life, and principally that of a life full of 
responsibility and activity—this has be¬ 
come clearer to me from year to year— 
lies solely and alone in the position we 
take regarding our Lord and Savior. I 
have called him the most personal of per¬ 
sonalities, and thus rightly, for it cannot 
be otherwise in human life; and as hap¬ 
pens with us. all, so it was also with him. 
There have been disputes regarding opin¬ 
ions of him; some were for him, some 
were in doubt, and many were against 
him. But about this there can be no 


doubt whatever, and the severest foe and 
denier of the Lord is but a proof of the 
fact—the Lord is still living at the present 
time as a complete personality which can¬ 
not be ignored! His heavenly form is 
still walking about in our midst, visible 
only to our mental eye and perceptible 
only to our soul; comforting, helping, 
strengthening, but also awakening con¬ 
tradiction and persecution, and because 
he cannot be ignored, every human being 
is compelled, whether he be aware of it 
or not, to compare the life he leads, the 
office he holds, the work he does, with 
the angle of vision in which he stands to¬ 
ward our Savior, and if his work is 
done in the sight of the Lord, whether 
it be agreeable to him, or whether it be 
to the contrary, his conscience, if it be 
still alive, will always thus direct him. In 
fact, I firmly believe that many people 
are of the opinion that it is inconceivable 
in our nowadays “modern" life, with its 
multifarious duties and its many situa¬ 
tions full of responsibility, that one could 
give such particular attention to the per¬ 
sonality of our Savior and have so much 
regard for him as there was felt for him 
in former times. 

Mankind has filled heaven with many 
beautiful figures, others than that of our 
Lord, with pious Christians who are called 
saints, and to whom he prays for help. 
But all this is only an incident and vain. 
The only helper and redeemer is now, 
and will always be, the Savior. There 
is only one thing I can advise you with all 
my heart, regarding your future life— 
toil and work without intermission; this 
is the essential part of the Christian life; 
it w r as thus he lived before us! Glance 
at the scriptures and read the parables of 






312 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


our Savior. The severest punishment is 
for the one who does nothing, who sits 
idle or floats with the stream and allows 
others to do the work, such as in the 
parable of the talents. Whatsoever be 
your passions or your gifts, everyone 
should try to do the best in his power 
and in his province to become a personal¬ 
ity, to grow into his duties, to toil in 
them and to further them in accordance 
with the example of our Savior. Above 
all, in everything you commence, strive 
to make it, if possible, of benefit to your 
fellow men, for it is the most beautiful 


thing to rejoice with others, and where 
this be not possible, try to have your work 
of at least some help to your*fellow men, 
as was exemplified in the life full of work 
and the acts of our Lord. In so doing 
then you will have fulfilled what is ex¬ 
pected from you. Then you will become 
good German men, capable princes of my 
house, who are able to share in the great 
work left to us all. That you may be 
fitted to carry out such a work to its ac¬ 
complishment with blessings, and that the 
help of God and our Savior be with you 
in this task will ever be our prayer. 





BOOK V 


Newest Discoveries 


IN THE 


SECRETS OF HEALTH 
AND LONG LIFE 


WITH THE 


Scientific Formulas and Principles for Physical 

and Mental Strength 


SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION AND DIRECTIONS IN PREVEN¬ 
TION AND CURE OF DISEASE WITH THE SPECIAL 
METHODS OF CONTINUED HEALTH AND 
LIFE FROM THE GREATEST 
LIVING AUTHORITIES 






Cave dwellers of. the present time. In the centre of the floor was the usual native hearth of three stones, with the fire in the centre, but there 
was no cooking pot on it; instead, suspended from a tripod, an earthen crock, which contained food, was simmering over the flame. Sus¬ 
pended from some rough poles across the rocky ceiling were numerous little packets of herbs. sH’is. dried meat, and other commodities which 
had to be placed in safety from the rats scuttling about in the remoter recesses of the cave.— Major Powell-Clayton's Account. 

















NEWEST 


SECRETS OF 

IN THE 

DISCOVERIES 

HEALTH 




THE GOSPEL 

As we look out upon the animal king¬ 
dom, to which we are so nearly related, 
and learn their habits and conditions of 
life, especially of those which have not 
been developed awry, and more or less 
perverted by long association with man¬ 
kind, two salient facts appear. In the 
first place they are all healthy and vig¬ 
orous, and without imperfections or 
blemishes, and, in the second place, the 
minimum of longevity among them ap¬ 
pears to be a period four times as great 
as that required to bring them to ma¬ 
turity. Furthermore, they all seek ex¬ 
actly the nourishment necessary to their 
growth, and never take more than the 
requisite amount. Nor are they ever 
known voluntarily to partake of any¬ 
thing in the nature of stimulants or poi¬ 
sons, so craved and indulged in by al¬ 
most all the races of men, and so debas¬ 
ing and destructive in their effects. It is 
evident that mankind in crossing the line 
from where they were guided by an un¬ 
erring instinct in these matters, and 
entering upon the dignity of humanity, 
by the possession of which they became 
endowed with the power of choice be¬ 
tween good and evil, made in respect of 
their physical well being a great sacri¬ 
fice. Had that side of man’s nature re¬ 
mained in the domain of instinct we 
should have every individual not only 
healthy, but beautiful, for that is what 
the ideal nature, unhindered, strives for 


OF HEALTH. 

in all cases and attains, and we should 
have the average of life prolonged, hearty 
and enjoyable, to at least a hundred 
years. 

Compare these ideal and altogether 
possible conditions with those we find 
existing to-day. Perfectly healthy indi¬ 
viduals are almost unknown, and per¬ 
fectly beautiful ones so rare that they are 
sung and celebrated wherever they ap¬ 
pear. Look about in the cars and crowd¬ 
ed streets, or in assemblies or drawing 
rooms, and how often will be found a 
man or woman with the radiant glow of 
perfect health, or who has not wrong 
proportions, some awkwardness, or some 
imperfection of line or feature about 
them. Probably the Greeks attained the 
highest degree of physical perfection as 
a race which has ever been reached. They 
cultivated and trained the body, their life 
was largely out of doors, and their way 
of living simple and abstemious. 

The ancients made Health a goddess, 
and it were well had her worship never 
failed and her altar fires girdled the 
earth to-day. Were she regnant now, 
there would he a joy and zest to life 
which no stimulants, and no toxic agents, 
can impart, and there would he a relish 
for work and play and a soundness of 
morals and vigor of mentality which can 
never be associated with impaired and de¬ 
based physical conditions of the human 
body. We are just beginning to realize 


315 





















316 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that in the task appointed us of lifting 
humanity up to a higher level we have 
begun at the wrong end. We have been 
lashing our intellectual faculties and 
prodding our moral natures, while not 
only wholly neglecting, but generally 
abusing, our physical selves, the well¬ 
being and healthiness of which are a 
fundamental necessity for any sort of 
progress. 

A large number of scientific medical 
men have in the past two or three decades 
entered upon a careful study of existing 
conditions, with a view to the ascertain¬ 
ment of the causes of so much that is 
deplorable and discouraging, and to find 
some remedy. They have reached a 
wonderfully unanimous consensus of 
opinion, and it is that the whole human 
race is being gradually deteriorated and 
debased by the voluntary and greatly in¬ 
creasing use of various poisons, alcohol, 
tobacco, opium and other drugs, and the 
toxic effects of improper and excessive 
amounts of food are said to be the causes 
of not only nine-tenths of the diseases 
which affect humanity, but of most of 
the crime and poverty as well. It is a 
common thing to hear a man warned of 
excesses say, “I had rather have a shorter 
life, and enjoy it without restriction, than 
to be abstemious and live to be old.” 
Even if every man were not bound to 
make the best of himself, he has no right 
to handicap his offspring, and that is just 
what is being done to an extent that is 
alarming. Heredity is inexorable, and 
it is through it that the sins of the fathers 
are visited upon the children to the third 
and fourth generations, and that the 
world is coming to be full of decadents. 
The child inherits the parent’s propensi¬ 


ties in increased degree, the cells are 
weakened and evil mental traits and 
feeble moral and intellectual tendencies 
and abnormal habits appear. Look at a 
few facts: Dr. Depierris says in his book, 
recently published, that tobacco is de¬ 
stroying the French race in the cradle, 
seventy per cent of the children in cities 
dying in their first year, the cause being 
that their vigor is withered in the sources 
of life by the excessive use of tobacco by 
their fathers. Statistics show that the 
consumption of alcoholic beverages has 
increased in the United States from ten 
gallons per capita in 1880 to nineteen gal¬ 
lons in 1902, and a corresponding in¬ 
crease of crime and insanity has gone 
along with it. The annual cost is $1,000,- 
000,000, while all public education costs 
only $175,000,000. Bring this waste to 
an end, with its attendant evils, and the 
worst problems of poverty and crime 
would disappear. The need of the hour 
is to proclaim a gospel of health. There 
will be no sound minds, no moral healthy 
tendencies and propensities, without 
sound bodies, and there can be no sound 
bodies until narcotic and alcoholic poison¬ 
ing ceases. 

Educational methods should be re¬ 
formed, and careful scientific hygiene 
and physiology taught, and re-taught 
throughout the courses of all schools and 
colleges. Nine-tenths of our people are 
physically defective, and our first aim in 
education should be to send every boy 
and girl into life with sound, normal, 
healthy, well-developed bodies, without 
the craving for any poisons. With that 
accomplished, one will hardly go amiss 
in saying the morals will look out for 
themselves. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


317 


SLEEP. 


Now blessings light on him that first 
invented this same sleep. It covers a 
man all over, thoughts and all, like a 
cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink 
for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold 
for the hot. It is the current coin that 
purchases all the pleasures of the world 
cheap, and the balance that sets the king 
and the shepherd, the fool and the wise 
man, even .—Sancho Panza. 

Of first importance to physical and 
mental health is plenty of sound, peaceful 
sleep—sleep, “sore labor's bath, balm of 
hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
chief nourisher in life's feast." Espe¬ 
cially essential is abundant sleep to mental 
vigor and well being. The tired leg, the 
tired arm, can relax and rest any time. 
The heart, which seems never to pause, 
really ceases momentarily from its exer¬ 
tions after every beat. The brain never 
completely rests except in sleep. He who 
takes less sleep than nature demands, no 
matter from what cause, invites mental 
impairment. Protracted loss of sleep 
means nervous derangement, insanity, 
death. 

Many people find it hard to go to sleep. 
This is because too much blood stays in 
their brains. When the mind is active the 
brain is ruddy and full of blood. In sleep 
it is pale and bloodless. The remedy for 
insomnia is the expulsion of the blood 
from the brain. This may often be se¬ 
cured by lying in a restful position and 
doing one’s best to think of nothing, or 
by keeping the mind fixed upon some 
totally uninteresting subject. A light, di¬ 
gestible meal, eaten shortly before retir¬ 


ing, will sometimes draw the blood from 
the brain to the stomach and induce sleep. 
Hot applications to the extremities will 
in many cases bring it. But the best cure 
for insomnia is daily exercise, careful 
dieting, and a care free mind. “Where 
care lodges sleep will never lie." 

Sick people need more sleep than well 
ones. Women usually require more than 
men. Children and the aged must have 
more than persons in their prime. Na¬ 
poleon slept only three or four hours a 
night while fighting some of his great 
campaigns. 

Few people can keep in the best bodily 
and mental condition on less than seven 
hours’ sleep; most need eight, many nine. 

THE VALUE OF SOUND SLEEP 
AND HOW TO OBTAIN IT. 

The two material conditions that par¬ 
ticularly contribute toward sound and re¬ 
freshing sleep are proper ventilation and 
proper lighting of sleeping apartments. 
Most people of intelligence now sleep with 
a window open the year around. But one 
window is not enough. It should at least 
be lowered from the top and raised from 
the bottom, as two apertures are essential, 
one for the ingress of pure air and the 
other for the egress of polluted air. 

To procure perfect circulation, how¬ 
ever, and a change of air as rapid as is 
the exhalation from the sleeper’s lungs, 
two windows should be open, one on each 
side of the room, or the second one may 
be in an adjoining room. To prove the 
need of this let a person who has been 
out in the open air walk into your house 



318 


BOOK or THE TIMES 


and enter your bedroom before you have 
risen in the morning. If you have been 
going on the one-window ventilation plan, 
his nostrils will promptly detect it, and 
he can tell you what you yourself will 
not be able to discern—that your room is 
close and ill smelling. Try the two-win¬ 
dow’ plan, and your visitor will be able to 
report your surroundings fresh and sweet 
smelling. 

VENTILATION AND LIGHT. 

But many of us who have learned the 
lesson of proper ventilation have given the 
subject of lighting no thought. Just as 
surely as you cannot sleep properly in air 
that poisons the blood, you cannot sleep 
properly facing the light. It irritates the 
entire nervous system, and nerve energy 
is too precious to be parted with unneces¬ 
sarily. The result is that the sleep is 
not deep and undisturbed, and nature is 
proportionately hampered in her repair 
work. This happens in a harmful degree 
even though you may not realize it suf¬ 
ficiently to awaken. And it happens, of 
course, when the gray dawn comes steal¬ 
ing through your window in your last 
hour or two of sleep, the very time when 
the brain should be getting its best rest 
and upbuilding. You may receive the ef¬ 
fect in a headache the next day, or you 
may get it in impaired digestion. For 
even digestion depends upon sleep. If the 
cells that are concerned in the stomach 
operations are not built up, they cannot 
work properly. 

Now the remedy for this lies in the 
arrangement of your sleeping room. Do 
not, for your very health’s sake, try to 
correct it by darkening the window with 


curtains, for that shuts out the life-giving 
fresh air. Let your windows alone. But 
simply turn the bed about so that you do 
not face the light. If there is no other 
way to compass the purpose, it can he 
done by placing the head-board of the 
bed against the window. And this will 
serve a double object in that it will also 
act as a protection against the draught. 
If it is a modern brass bed without the 
head-hoard, hang a blanket or quilt over 
the top railing. Quite possibly some one 
may remark that the room will not look 
so well. Perhaps it will not. But life is 
more important. And just remember 
that it is the prolongation of human life 
that you are aiming at through the right 
conditions for sleep, proper lighting and 
proper ventilation. Some day when 
architects learn to build houses for the 
accommodation of people instead of, as 
now. forcing people to accommodate 
themselves to houses, all of these emer¬ 
gencies that befall in the natural course of 
living will be arranged for. Until then 
we must make the best of present cir¬ 
cumstances. 

But, there is another occasion where 
we are gravely, sinfully delinquent, that 
is, in the matter of letting the light shine 
in a sleeper's eyes. We cannot lay the 
blame to the architects nor anywhere else 
but to our own carelessness. And, worst 
of all. little children are the helpless vic¬ 
tims. How often is a baby allowed to 
lie flat on its back in a cradle or a car¬ 
nage with its face lifted to a glare of 
light? It is worse than it could possibly 
be for an adult, for he will know enough 
to turn over or otherwise shield his eyes 
with the bed coverings. It is a wrong, a 






NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


319 


great wrong. I lie light not only inter- nerves and impairs the organ of sight, 
feres with the baby’s sound sleep, but it And so we have many little children wear- 
in many cases directly affects the optic ing glasses. 

CLEANLINESS AND DISINFECTION. 


Disinfection is only efficient when com¬ 
plete ; like antisepsis, it is valueless if 
any detail of technic be omitted. If death 
occur in a case of virulently contagious 
disease, the room is generally disinfected; 
but attendants and body are often allowed 
to escape. This is a flaw in the method 
which makes it a question whether any 
actual good has been done. To make 
matters actually safe, it is wise to insist 
upon thorough disinfection of the room, 
of the body, of the attendants, and their 
clothing; and though the patient be living 
of the body also. 

Clothing is best disinfected by im¬ 
mersing in water in the room; it may 
then be safely carried to wherever it is 
most convenient to boil, steam or treat 
by chemical disinfectants. Carbolic acid 
is perhaps the best and cheapest all round 
disinfectant. The room cannot be satis¬ 
factorily disinfected while occupied with 
a living patient. If the patient can be 
moved, the room may be disinfected, and 
the patient returned. Otherwise it is ad¬ 
visable to await recovery or death. After 

AIR A TONIC 

At first sight there may not seem to be 
any question about it—the way to use 
air. But on the most casual examination 
it appears that you can use air only a little 
or you can use it a great deal ; also that 
you can use it clean or use it dirty. 

People would not dream of drinking 


the completion of the case, all our read¬ 
ers know the proper use of sulphur and 
formaldehyde, of carbolic acid, and cor¬ 
rosive sublimate. 

Disinfection of the living patient and 
of the attendants is quite important. An 
infected patient is disinfected by a bath 
of corrosive sublimate or carbolic acid, 
and a complete change of clothes and bed¬ 
ding. Corrosive sublimate is only to be 
employed where a porcelain-lined bath¬ 
tub is available. The disinfection of the 
patient improves his comfort and safety, 
and it protects, in a measure, those who 
attend him. After the first thorough bath 
and disinfection, it is often advisible to 
employ antiseptic sponging at frequent 
intervals. If an exposed person will sub¬ 
mit to such treatment, and don a com¬ 
plete change of clothing, he may be re¬ 
leased from quarantine, but should be 
kept under supervision. Naturally he 
must remain away from the possibility of 
reinfection until the known period of in¬ 
cubation is passed safely. 

AND “SOAP.” 

water that they suspected to be dirty, but 
they cheerfully swallow any amount of 
dirty air. 

Again, they would not use the towel 
hanging by a public washbasin in a train 
lavatory because it has been used by other 
people, but, seated in the train, they will 





320 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


use air that has been used by all the other 
travelers, and not used once but used 
often. 

The moment one frankly investigates 
one of these little details of existence 
someone cries: “Oh, don't; it’s too hor¬ 
rid !” Yet it would be interesting to com¬ 
pute how often the same air has passed 
through the lungs or parts of the lungs, 
rather, of all the many people sitting in 
a car with the windows closed for half 
an hour. There is no need to say a great 
deal about oxygen and carbonic acid gas 
—we may leave that to the science primer 
which everybody studies at school and 
forgets, presumably, the minute they leave 
school; but some reference may be made 
to the fact, and that “close” air and “hot’’ 
air are not at all the same thing. 

Air may be close and hot—that is the 
more frequent state in which one finds 
it. but it may also be close and cold—as, 
for instance, in public halls, when one 
goes into them before an entertainment, 
and in empty school-rooms, and also in 
empty railway carriages. 

By breathing very quietly and deeply, 
by being well nourished, one can avoid 
“catching cold” from sitting beside open 
railway carriage windows; but sitting in 
close air it is very difficult, in fact, almost 
always impossible, to avoid suffering in a 
variety of ways from the poison (we will 
call it broadly poison, as a matter of fact 
it is chiefly carbonic acid gas) of close 
air. 

The person who is really strong and 
really healthy is the person who keeps fit 
in bad conditions. 

Air is the finest preservative of tem¬ 
per. Irritation, that insidious modern 
disease from which so many people suf¬ 


fer without knowing it, and “nerves,” 
that is “overstrained” nerves, is a state 
which, once you are alive to the fact, you 
can actually see being produced in people 
owing to close air, and especially working 
in close air. 

The snappishness and “shortness” so 
often to be found in business offices are 
not to be wondered at when one gazes 
round the room and notices the shut win¬ 
dows, nearly all of them dust sealed. 

When you have learned to notice this 
unhealthy, nervous condition—it is to be 
found in the chambers of invalids, too— 
in other people you can watch carefully, 
and note the similar effect of close air on 
yourself! 

METHOD OF INHALATION. 

Stand a moment or two at an open win¬ 
dow and draw four or five deep, long 
breaths; when you return to the conver¬ 
sation you were holding or the work you 
were doing, self-command will be quite 
easy ; you won't feel rasped up. 

There has recently been some public 
correspondence about the efficacy of 
breathing in time to the motion of the 
vessel as a preventive of sea-sickness. It 
is not the fact that one breathes in time 
with the rise and fall of the steamer which 
sobers the irritable gastric nerve, but the 
fact that one breathes slowly, and hence 
deeply and fully, and that stills every 
nerve and induces a feeling of power and 
control in the system. r 

This may be experimented with in vari¬ 
ous ways, this special use of air. 

There are persons who feel sea-sick 
when the vessel is still in harbor and quite 
motionless; let them try deep and full 
breathing (not in the stuffy cabins, but 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


321 


somewhere where the air is “fresh”), and 
they will be delighted by the result. 

Again, suppose you have before you an 
interview, say, with a servant whom it is 
your unpleasant duty to reprimand or dis¬ 
miss; most sensitive and kindly-natured 
women hate this occasion and suffer con¬ 
siderably just beforehand. 

Try the deep, full breathing (at the 
hall-door or a good open upper window) 
for a few moments first; you will ex¬ 
perience just that sense of calmness and 
self-command that is so essential, your 
pulse will he steady, your voice low and 
clear, your nerves absolutely in order— 
simply and solely from a right use of 
that most common element, the air. 

BATHING IN AIR. 

Air, you may not have happened to 
know, is also an excellent medium to 
wash with. Some people prefer it greatly 
to water, and there is a good deal to be 
said for them. 

Most of us believe in “airing" linen 
that comes home from the laundry, but it 
is vastly more necessary to air that sort 
of clothing which, from its texture and 
make-up, cannot go to the laundry. 

A good maid makes this a regular part 
of her duties, but people who live in the 
country could go a step further and have 
things hung in the sun in some private 
part of garden or grounds; anything 
would be better than the very general 
habit of piling linen upon a chair at night 
-—in rooms in which one is about to 
sleep. 

Air and sunlight have a wonderful ef¬ 
fect upon the hair in strengthening it and 
keeping the skin of the head healthy, and 
moist air upon a “drizzling day or warm 


springtime is astonishing in its effect upon 
the complexion. 

Air baths are becoming very general. 

When Kneipp cures and Keigren cures 
have been so much heard of, the larger 
public is waking up to the idea that some 
of these means to health may be inexpen¬ 
sively applied at home, and it is certain 
that cold-catching becomes a thing of the 
past with those women who make a prac¬ 
tice of washing freely indoors in the fresh 
air. 

All physical exercises gain in effect by 
being performed with little clothing on 
the body. The small nerves of the skin 
experience a restraint, which communi¬ 
cates itself subtly to the muscles, from 
heavy garments worn during morning ex¬ 
ercises. 

Take an air bath, in full sunlight, in a 
room where one is protected from winds. 
Under other conditions you lose a certain 
amount of heat. It is, in so far, a bad 
thing to lose heat, that if the temperature 
of the body sinks below a certain point, 
the capabilities of the muscles are at once 
restricted and impaired—witness the 
clumsiness with which you tie a bow 
when your fingers are cold. 

Every scientific theory tends to insist 
on the possession of power, alertness and 
perfect control of the whole of one’s 
muscles and nerves, so that the air bath 
should not be taken in a state of repose, 
except in such weather and conditions as 
will not tend to chill the skin; but an air 
bath combined with exercises of five 
minutes’ duration will be a splendid stim¬ 
ulant, and it has this advantage—that one 
can see the muscles at work, and have the 
satisfaction of watching them grow. For 
an air bath is a light bath, too, and no 



322 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


small part of its use is the satisfaction of 
the mind in watching increasing symmetry 
and grace of movement. 

AN ESSENTIAL METHOD OF 
BREATHING TO RETAIN 
HEALTH. 

A great deal is being written and 
taught concerning the vital importance of 
correct breathing in the cult of health and 
beauty. In every public school the pupils 
are being taught correct or deep breath¬ 
ing, and it is impossible to estimate the 
lives that will be prolonged and saved, as 
well as the enjoyment of life, the beauti¬ 
fying of faces and the development of 
symmetrical figures that will certainly 
follow the knowledge and application of 
the rules for deep breathing and the dis¬ 
tribution of the oxygen inhaled in all 
parts of the lungs. 

The Hindus describe many forms of 
correct breathing. They preach the gos¬ 
pel of the breath of life and lay enormous 
stress on the importance of the proper 
performance of this essential function. 
The complete breath is an exercise every¬ 
one should practice. It is described as 
follows: 

WATER AS THE 

Drink a glass of water when you get 
out of bed in the morning. Never mind 
the size of the glass. Let the water be 
cold if you will. Some people prescribe 
hot water, but that isn't necessary. 

You may have washed your face al¬ 
ready and relished the experience. You 
may have taken a cold plunge into the tub 
and delighted in the shock and its reac¬ 
tion. The brisk use of the tooth brush 
has left your mouth clean and the breath 


i. Stand or sit erect. Breathing 
through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first 
filling the lower part of the lungs, which 
is accomplished by bringing into play the 
diaphragm, which descending exerts a 
gentle pressure on the abdominal organs 
pushing forward the front walls of tin 
abdomen. Then fill the middle part of 
the lungs, pushing out the lower ribs, 
breast bone and chest. Then fill the high¬ 
er portion of the lungs, protruding the 
upper chest, thus lifting the chest, includ¬ 
ing the upper six or seven pairs of ribs. 
In the final movement the lower part of 
the abdomen will be slightly drawn in, 
which movement gives the lungs a sup¬ 
port and also helps to fill the highest part 
of the lungs. 

At first reading it may appear that this 
breath consists of three distinct move¬ 
ments. This, however, is not the correct 
idea. The inhalation is continuous, the 
entire chest cavity from the lowest dia¬ 
phragm to the highest point of the chest 
in the region of the collarbone being ex¬ 
panded with a uniform movement. Avoid 
a jerky series of inhalations, and strive 
to attain a steady continuous action. 

BEST MEDICINE. 

sweet. But you are dirty still. Drink a 
glass of cold water and enjoy the sensa¬ 
tion of being clean inside. 

All that is luxurious in the cold bath 
cleansing the outside, is artificial. That 
which should prompt the glass of water 
after sleeping is natural. As a test, tell 
the 9-year-old protestant against his 
morning scrub of cold water that he may 
escape it by drinking half a pint of the 
fluid. He will jump at the opportunity. 







NEWEST DISCO I r FRIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


323 


Sleep has drawn upon the water in the 
blood, and the instinct of the animal, 
under natural conditions, is to replenish 
the circulatory system and distend the 
blood vessels anew. The food in the 
stomach which had so much to do toward 
inducing sleep has disappeared, leaving a 
mucous substance in the alimentary 
canals. Yet man would wash his face 
and leave these half-clogged canals to 
the duties of another day. 

Drink a glass of cold water in the name 
of cleanliness. It becomes one of the 
shortest and easiest of toilet duties. It is 


swallowed in a second and in five minutes 
it has passed from the stomach, taking 
with it the clogging secretions of the ali¬ 
mentary tracts. It has left behind the 
stimulus that goes with cold water, and, 
by filling the arterial system to the nor¬ 
mal, it puts a spur to the circulation that 
has grown sluggish in the night. It is 
one of the greatest of awakeners and one 
of nature’s own stimulants. 

Drink a glass of water before break¬ 
fast, another before luncheon, and another 
before dinner. Water is the best, cheap¬ 
est and pleasantest medicine. 


HOW MUCH TO EAT. 


How shall one determine how much 
food to eat? Let your sensation decide. 
It must be kept in mind that the entire 
function of digestion and assimilation is 
carried on without conscious supervision 
or concurrence. It should be entirely un¬ 
felt and unknown, excepting by the feel¬ 
ing which accompanies and follows its 
normal accomplishment. 

Satiety is had. It implies a sensation 
of fulness in the region of the stomach, 
and that means that too much food has 
been taken. The exact correspondence, 
in a healthy animal, between the appetite 
and the amount of food required is ex¬ 
traordinary. 

As a rule, the meal, unless eaten very 
slowly, should cease before the appetite 
is entirely satisfied, because a little time 
is required for the outlying organs and 
tissues to feel the effects of the food that 
has been ingested. If too little has been 
taken, it is easy enough to make it up 
at the next meal, and the appetite will 


be only the better, and the food more 
grateful. 

No one was ever sorry for having in¬ 
voluntarily eaten too little, while millions 
every day repent having eaten too much. 
It has been said that the great lesson 
homoeopathy taught the world was this: 
That, whereas physicians have been in 
the habit of giving the patient the largest 
dose he can stand, they have been led to 
see that their purpose was better sub¬ 
served by giving him the smallest dose 
that would produce the desired effect. 
And so it is with food. 

FOOD NEVER SHOULD BE 
BOLTED. 

Many serious maladies are due to bolt¬ 
ing food. This bad habit not only leads 
to difficulty of digestion, but it favors 
excessive eating. Each morsel of food 
should be chewed until its flavor is no 
longer perceptible, when it will be almost 
automatically swallowed and digested 
quickly and comfortably. 





324 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The morbid craving for food, which will satisfy the appetite and the require- 
is a common symptom, is often dispelled ments of the system much more readily 
by leisurely and elaborate mastication. A than a large quantity that has been bolted, 
small quantity of food well masticated 

SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS AS TO SMOKING 

TOBACCO. 


It certainly is a peculiar item in the 
history of mankind that since the fifteenth 
century a vegetable growth (Nicotiana 
Tabacum) has come into such general 
use for smoking as almost to revolution¬ 
ize the social customs of civilized people. 
It would be difficult today to find a quar¬ 
ter of the globe in which this use of the 
plant is not known; yet, although now so 
prevalent a habit, smoking has met with 
stout opposition at times. 

It has been denounced by popes, from 
pulpits and on platforms; even reigning 
sovereigns have set themselves to stamp 
out the practice. Russia at one time in¬ 
sisted on cutting off the nose of every 
smoker; and Persia once made it an 
offense punishable by death. It has been 
proclaimed against on the Continent in 
almost every part; and in England King 
James Ids “Counterblast Against To¬ 
bacco” is a lasting memorial of his de¬ 
termination that “no puffer of tobacco” 
should receive any Crown appointment. 

It has been contended, on the one hand, 
that tobacco is a poison and every smoker 
a suicide ; while, on the other, it has been 
claimed as an aid to longevity, so min¬ 
imizing the wear and tear of life that old 
age naturally ensues. In spite of all op¬ 
position and of every argument raised 
against it, the use of the soothing weed 
is a well-nigh universal custom. 

That tobacco is not a necessity is read¬ 


ily conceded on all sides, for no sane per¬ 
son could possibly claim that its use is 
essential to life. Its most devoted friends 
plead nothing beyond the fact that smok¬ 
ing is a luxury, one which sustains a 
cheerful brightness and affords an enjoy¬ 
ment out of all proportion to the small¬ 
ness of its cost. Complaints against the 
extravagance of the habit are unreason¬ 
able, and only to be attributed to wilful 
ignorance or want of reflection. Many 
things in daily use are by no means neces¬ 
sary, yet they largely contribute to the 
enjoyment and pleasure of life. 

Thackeray once said: “I vow and be¬ 
lieve that the cigar has been one of the 
greatest creature comforts of my life—a 
kind companion, a gentle stimulant, an 
amiable anodyne, a cementer of friend¬ 
ship. May I die if I abuse that kindly 
weed which has given me so much 
pleasure.” 

TOBACCO AS A POISON. 

The only objection really worth con¬ 
sideration is that tobacco acts as a poison 
in the healthy system. On this score a 
great deal has been put forth which is 
matter for serious reflection; but other 
allegations have failed to discriminate be¬ 
tween the use and the abuse of the weed. 
It is easy to find similar fault with most 
things we eat and drink, for more harm 
has resulted from lack of self-control in 






An allegory of war represented by the Chinese God of pestilence and destruction. 











320 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


,ese matters than could possibly follow 
.he excessive use of tobacco. 

Indeed, there is nothing which, though 
lawful and right in itself, is not open to 
the same kind of abuse; and if we deprive 
ourselves of everything capable of being 
wrongly used, away go money, food and 
life. 

As already suggested, the main point 
for consideration is the poisonous action 
of “Nicotiana Tabacum.” Medical 
science has proved that tobacco used in 
excess has a directly harmful influence on 
the healthy system. But, then, the same 
may be said of opium, strychnia and 
belladonna, three of the most useful drugs 
of vegetable growth, yet, nevertheless, 
three of the most actively poisonous. 
They have a legitimate use, and thou¬ 
sands of persons are frequently deriving 
benefit from taking them; their action as 
poisons is only produced when they enter 
the system in too large a dose. Would 
it not be unreasonable to prohibit their 
use as medicines, simply on the ground 
that they are open to abuse as poisons? 

EXCESSIVE SMOKING. 

The two common conditions which 
result from excessive smoking are a 
characteristic alteration of rhythm in the 
beating of the heart and an affection of 
the eyes which impairs the vision and re¬ 
duces the power of distinguishing colors. 
The furred tongue, the chronic irritation 
of the throat, and the accompanying dys¬ 
pepsia, though less important, are, never¬ 
theless, inconvenient and ought never to 
be present in a healthy person. 

That such harm does result when use 
passes into abuse is sufficient warning to 
put every smoker on his guard; and, if 


an occasion arises, should prompt him to 
reduce his consumption of tobacco, or 
lay aside forever a habit which threatens 
to impair his health. 

The opponents of smoking unfortun¬ 
ately rely upon evidence gathered from 
these cases of abuse, and the consequence 
is their allegations do not accord with es¬ 
tablished fact. If every smoker were being 
slowly poisoned deaths would occur at 
an earlier age, and their number would 
markedly increase. There are many 
things besides tobacco which are highly 
detrimental when abused, yet the rational 
use of them is beneficial in the highest 
degree. 

The late Professor Huxley said: 
“There is no more harm in a pipe than 
there is in a cup of tea. You may poison 
yourself by drinking too much tea, or 
kill yourself by eating too many beef¬ 
steaks.” 

Dr. Richardson says: “In an adult 
man who is tolerant of tobacco, moderate 
smoking does no great harm. It some¬ 
what stops waste and soothes. The 
ground on which tobacco holds so firm 
a footing is that of nearly every luxury 
—it is the least injurious.” 

Dr. Lankester said: “I dare not, as 
a physiologist or a statist, tell you there 
exists any proof of its injurious influence 
when used in moderation. The first 
symptoms of giddiness, or palpitation, of 
indolence, or uneasiness while smoking 
should induce you to lay it aside. These 
are physiological indications of its dis¬ 
agreement, which, if you neglect, you 
may find increase upon you and seriously 
embarrass your health.” 

It should not be forgotten that some 
constitutions are altogether intolerant of 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


327 


tobacco, even when it is smoked to a 
limited extent, and for such persons there 
is but one sensible course, and that is to 
give it up. 

Those who are rational smokers will 
never indulge on an empty stomach; 
many seem able to do so with impunity, 
but the practice is bad. They will keep 
the pipe well cleansed, and use only a pure 
tobacco. Whether smoking a cigar, pipe 
or cigarette, they will abstain from using 
it to the last extremity, because it is 
the accumulated products of combustion 
which form the injurious elements. • The 
rational smoker will never expectorate 
unless on occasion when absolutely com¬ 
pelled; or, if he finds himself falling into 
this bad habit, being rational, he will cease 
to be a smoker. 

TOBACCO AND THE YOUNG. 

There is no physician who will not 
condemn the use of tobacco by juveniles. 
He knows, as the result of exact knowl¬ 
edge, the effects of tobacco on the youth¬ 
ful system. The unfortunate part of the 
matter is that the doctor here resembles 
one crying in the wilderness, no' man 
heeding his warnings. Tt is, however, a 
cheering sign of the times that public at¬ 
tention is being fortunately directed to 
this evil. Once we can arouse public 
opinion regarding the effects which to¬ 
bacco-smoking is capable of producing on 
the young, we shall have taken the best 
and the most effective step towards the 
repression of the habit by legal or other 
means. 

• effect on children. 

To understand the injurious effects of 
tobacco on the juvenile system, we require 
to have regard to the exact composition 


of the blood. It is a matter of common 
knowledge that any alteration of the 
quality of the blood is a serious matter 
at any age. We see this fact illustrated 
in the case of an anaemic girl, where her 
symptoms and weakness are known to be 
due to a lack of proper composition of the 
vital fluid. The blood, let us remember, 
is the common currency of the body. All 
nutrition is effected through its aid. 
Every tissue and every cell draws its 
store of nourishment from the blood; 
hence, if any deficiency exists in the qual¬ 
ity of this fluid, the nourishment of the 
body cannot proceed as it should do. 
Especially serious is this in the case of 
the young. There the body has not 
merely to make good its daily loss, but it 
has also to account for growth. The de¬ 
ficient quality of the blood is therefore a 
far more serious matter in early life than 
in later existence. If the growing tis¬ 
sues are not supplied with the material 
from which they are to form the new 
growths needed for the body’s building, 
stunting of the frame must inevitably oc¬ 
cur, to say nothing of other results de¬ 
pendent upon this cause. 

INJURY TO THE BLOOD. 

In our blood we find untold millions of 
microscopic bodies called red corpuscles. 
These give the blood its red tint. They 
float in the liquid, or serum, of the blood, 
which liquid is as clear as the water we 
drink. The use of the red corpuscles is 
to carry the gases of the blood. They 
convey to all parts of the body the oxygen 
we breathe into our lungs from the air. 
This oxygen is part of our food, and 
without it no other food can be utilized in 
the body; while when we are deprived of 



328 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


it, as we all know, life ends in a few 
minutes at most. These red corpuscles 
also carry back to the lungs the carbonic 
acid gas which represents part of the 
waste of our bodies, and which is con¬ 
tinually being given forth as the result 
of our bodily work. Anything which, 
therefore, interferes with the action of 
the red corpuscles of the blood must re¬ 
sult in two things. First, we cannot 
have conveyed to our bodies a sufficient 
supply of oxygen; and, second, we can¬ 
not have removed from our bodies the 
waste which for health it is necessary to 
be rid of. 

INJURY TO HEART, EYES AND 
STOMACH. 

Excess of tobacco in the adult will pro¬ 
duce very definite results. A man who 
over-smokes will suffer from eye-troubles 
and from heart affection. His digestion 
will also be upset, and his health will 
suffer at large. When he gives up the 
excess-habit his normal state will be rep¬ 
resented. His eyes will regain their pow¬ 
ers, and his irregularity of heart action 
will cease. He will be all the better if a 
good tonic is used, twice daily after food, 
or a teaspoonful of the compound syrup 
of the hypophosphites thrice daily in wa¬ 
ter after meals. So far the adult can 
easily recover his health in most cases, 
tobacco being given up till he is well, 
and strict moderation being afterwards 
observed. Tobacco-illness is ntost fre¬ 
quently seen in cigarette smokers, who 
are apt to consume much more of the 
“weed” than pipe or cigar smokers. The 
cigarette is an insidious form of tobacco- 

o 


indulgence, seeing that it is always ready 
at hand and that it is regarded as repre¬ 
senting a mere “whiff” and nothing more. 
This is a mistake and in addition we get 
the baneful habit of inhaling the smoke, 
which, as a medical journal lately pointed 
out, contains very noxious elements in¬ 
deed. 

EFFECT ON GROWING BODY. 

In the case of the boy, results are of 
a very different and more serious nature. 
He is affecting a growing body, and one 
whose nutrition has yet to be fully ac¬ 
complished. Tobacco on the young acts 
specifically on those red corpuscles of the 
blood to which allusion has been made. 
It destroys their power of discharging 
their duties. They cannot perfectly carry 
oxygen to the body, or remove carbonic 
acid gas and other waste matters from 
it. Hence the health of the boy is really 
attacked from two directions; one from 
the side of his adequate nourishment, the 
other from the side of the removal of 
waste. Tobacco-smoking under adult 
age therefore results in a tendency to the 
under-nourishment of the body, and to 
stunting of growth. In addition we have 
to take into account its effects on the 
heart and eyes, which cannot be less 
serious than those seen in the adult. In 
a word, tobacco is a poison to the young, 
and if we object to the young taking alco¬ 
hol, so likewise should we strenuously op¬ 
pose their indulging in tobacco. The law 
or sentiment which forbids juvenile drink¬ 
ing should be extended to the prevention 
of juvenile smoking. 




320 


NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN 


WHISKY AS 

A noted physician was once asked by 
a noted patient recovering from a severe 
and exhausting illness whether whisky 
would accelerate the process of recovery, 
which was discouragingly slow. The 
patient had once been what is known as 
a “hard drinker” and had stopped the use 
of liquor altogether. The question was, 
would it be wise to put the enemy into 
his mouth again even under exigent cir¬ 
cumstances ? 

The physician said : “The moral phase 
of the case need not be considered at all. 
We are dealing with a medical proposi¬ 
tion. 1 assure you, as a physician and as 
a man, that the use of alcohol is unneces¬ 
sary. There is nothing that alcohol will 
do that cannot better be accomplished by 
strychnine and without any of the evils, 
actual and contingent, which follow the 
use of whisky.” 

The patient got well, thus justifying the 
advice of the physician, and the opinion 
of that physician is now held by most 
medical men. While it is doubtless true 
that what is one man’s meat is another 
man’s poison, there never was a time when 
physicians were more slow to prescribe 
alcohol in any form than they are today. 

The net result of this medical attitude 
is that we shall have less humbug and 
hypocrisy about whisky as a “medicine.” 
People who want to drink it will do so 
avowedly as a beverage and that will be 
just as satisfactory. Whisky as a bever- 

TEMPERANCE AND 

It is a curious fact that the prohibition 
movement in England was first organized 
through the refusal in 1840 of a life in- 


THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


A MEDICINE. 

age will stimulate one as surely as if it 
were a medicine, and as intoxication, to 
a greater or less degree, is the object 
sought by him who drinks whisky, the 
chief end will be attained just the same. 

CONSUMPTION AND ALCOHOL. 

Dr. Davis in his book on Self-cure for 
Consumption, says, “Nothing brings the 
patient more quickly and surely to the 
grave than alcohol. Alcohol has never 
cured and never will cure tuberculosis. 
It not only poisons the system, but it ruins 
the stomach, and thus prevents this organ 
from properly digesting the necessary 
food. It impairs nutrition, the very func¬ 
tion which, of all others, it is important in 
consumptives to maintain in its highest 
integrity. The elimination of alcohol 
by the lungs increasing the congestion of 
the bronchial mucous membranes, and 
thus enhancing the cough, is very objec¬ 
tionable. The digestion is impaired as well 
as the heart’s action through fatty degen¬ 
eration, and other functional and patho¬ 
logic conditions are produced or inten¬ 
sified. One of the most important offices 
of breathing is to remove from the blood 
the carbonic acid gas, while drinking alco¬ 
hol retains it. The more a man drinks 
the less carbonic acid gas is carried out of 
the system by the expired air; it must, 
therefore, be retarded, and must accumu¬ 
late, rendering the blood more and more 
impure.” 

LIFE INSURANCE. 

surance company to accept a total abstain¬ 
er at its ordinary advertised rates. 

The medical advisers of the company 



330 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


held that the total abstention not only sub¬ 
jected its professor to unusual risks of 
infection but also implied such a peculiar 
character, so different from that of the 
average man on which their statistics were 
based, that these could not be relied upon 
in determining the risk. 

This man was Robert Warner, a bell 
founder of London. He was 26 years of 
age, a total abstainer, and a Quaker. He 
immediately set about forming an insur¬ 
ance company of his own, and with the as¬ 
sistance of other total abstainers and 
members of the Society of Friends soon 
succeeded in establishing the United 
Kingdom Total Abstainers’ Life Associa¬ 
tion, in which Warner took out the first 
policy. 

ABSTAINERS LIVE LONGEST. 

In 1849 a new department was added 
to the company, to which non-abstaining 
members were admitted. However, only 
those who used alcohol in such modera¬ 
tion that no lesion from its use could be 
detected at the time were admitted. The 
name of the society was changed to the 
United Kingdom Temperance and Gen¬ 
eral Provident Institution. From 1866 
to 1901 the statistics of each section were 
kept separately. 

During this thirty-six years, in the mod¬ 
erate drinking division there occurred 
11,241 deaths with claims amounting to 
$12,999,635. In the temperance division 
there were 6,300 deaths, with claims of 
$7,243,110. According to calculations 
based on the probability figures of the in¬ 
stitute of actuaries, there should have oc¬ 
curred 11,727 and 8,838 deaths respective¬ 
ly. The deaths among the moderate 
drinkers were 486 less than was to have 


been expected, while those among the to¬ 
tal abstainers were 2,538 less, a striking 
difference in favor of the prohibitionists. 

INSURANCE PREMIUM LOW. 

According to Dr. J. Simms Woodhead, 
a prominent English physician, the posi¬ 
tion of English companies is now exactly 
reversed, and they are glad to pay a ten 
per cent bonus to total abstainers. 

During the last year there has been an 
unusual amount of discussion by leading 
physicians in England and France of the 
value of alcohol as a drug and its dangers 
as a beverage. There has thus been put 
on record a mass of new testimony of the 
highest scientific character, and entirely 
free from the prejudice which stultifies so 
much of the pure prohibitionist literature. 
The conclusions justified by the experience 
of the majority of these men may be 
briefly summed up as follows: 

ALCOHOL IS A DRUG. 

In certain bodily conditions and when 
carefully administered, alcohol is a valu¬ 
able drug, but is at present used much too 
freely, and with distinctly harmful results. 
Its use as a daily beverage in any form 
is dangerous, physically and morally. As 
an illustration of its medicinal abuse, Sir 
Samuel Wilkes cites the following case: 

“A young lady for many years the sub¬ 
ject of heart disease had finally been 
forced to take to her bed, and Dr. Wilkes 
was called in consultation. It was a 
matter of formality, as she was thought 
to be dying. 

“She was lying in bed gasping, with a 
fluttering heart and an almost impercept¬ 
ible, irregular pulse, and semi-conscious; 
she was being plied with brandy in order 
to keep her alive. The two medical men 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


331 


who were present did not perceive that 
they were poisoning her, but nevertheless 
assented to my strong wish to stop the 
spirit. I met her a short time afterward 
walking in the street.” 

As to the daily drinking of some form 
of alcohol, while the weight of opinion 
was against it, several of the physicians 
had observed no ill effects from its use in 
moderation in themselves or their patients. 
Dr. J. Simms Woodhead, however, calls 
attention, to the significant fact that when 
the body is being trained for any unusual 
exertion the use of alcohol is strictly pro¬ 
hibited. 

ATHLETES SHUN LIQUOR. 

During his athletic career at the Uni¬ 
versity of Edenburg he says : “I was early 
impressed by the fact that nearly every 
athlete who was not already an abstainer 
became practically a teetotaler during his 
period of strict training, and in some cases 
had so to alter his routine of life that he 
found it almost impossible to do anything 
but keep in training. Those of us on the 
other hand who were teetotalers had to 
alter our daily routine of living compara¬ 
tively little; we could continue our work 
in the classes and it was not necessary for 
us to refuse dances or dinners. 

“It was not the dancing, the dining, or 
the working that upset men. It was get¬ 
ting rid of the alcohol. I may say most 
confidently that during my most success¬ 
ful athletic years I did my best class 
work, and during the whole of that time 
I do not know that I had to refuse a single 
invitation on account of training.” 

TREATING. 

The habit of treating is as old as the 
human race. It is the most ancient rite 


of hospitality. No doubt Job spread be¬ 
fore his friends something wherewithal to 
refresh their inner men before they sat 
down to mourn with him in the land of 
Uz. The Bedouin gives the stranger food 
and drink when he enters his tent and 
pursues and plunders him when he has 
left it. The South Sea Islander hospit¬ 
ably regaled the missionary before eat¬ 
ing him. The wayfarer was ever wel¬ 
come at the table of the Saxon manor 
house, and he who last went under the 
table showed the most appreciation of its 
lord’s bounty. 

The notion that the possession of a gen¬ 
erous nature is best proved by filling one’s 
guests’ or one's friends’ stomachs, whether 
they are hungry or thirsty or not, has 
flourished instead of decayed in the sun¬ 
light of civilization. Treating was for¬ 
merly a prerogative of man only. Even 
if women were permitted to stay and see 
their lord and his friends feast, they us¬ 
ually had to retire when the flowing bowl 
began to circulate. Now, however, wo¬ 
men are treaters on a large scale. 
Each season they give innumerable re¬ 
ceptions and dinner parties, and every 
woman who accepts invitations to social 
functions is required by inviolable con¬ 
ventions also to give them. But men, 
especially American men, are still the 
most generous treaters. Does a man want 
to get business from another man? He 
gives him a drink. Does he wish to cul¬ 
tivate another's friendship or show him¬ 
self a “good fellow” ? He gives him a 
drink—perhaps two drinks. If six men, 
or a dozen, all acquaintances, happen to 
enter a drinking place together, it is not 
unlikely that each will buy drinks for the 
crowd before they leave, and that all will 



332 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


go forth more or less wabbly in their un¬ 
derpinning. 

If men treated one another, as women 
do, to punch, salad, and ice cream, or if, 
like women, they did not reciprocate their 
treats for a week or for several weeks, 
they would, like women, suffer no worse 
effects from them than occasional attacks 
of indigestion. But the treating habit, as 
it prevails among men, is one of the 
nation's principal manufacturers of 
spendthrifts and drunkards. The Anti- 


Treating League of America has been 
started by traveling men to abate the evil. 
It is a practical movement in favor, not 
of total abstinence, but of real temper¬ 
ance. It is desirable, not that the indul¬ 
gence of the world's old spirit of hospital¬ 
ity and good fellowship shall be discour¬ 
aged, but that the excesses which that 
spirit has led to shall be repressed. Any 
league having this aim deserves to be en¬ 
couraged. 


EMERGENCIES. 


FIRST AIDS IN PERILOUS 
CONDITIONS. 

Any help given to be useful must be 
carefully and quickly rendered, especially 
in drowning and poisoning cases. Too 
much attention, turning and moving by 
a crowd of excited people will probably 
do as much harm as too little. All cannot 
do the same thing at the same time. Let 
one take charge and let the others assist 
him. Keep the crowd of curious persons 
that always gather away from the patient. 
He will get more air, and those helping 
him will be freer to work. Always send 
for a physician in serious accidents. If 
one cannot be at hand immediately, as is 
often the case, help may be given pending 
his arrival if the suggestions below are 
remembered. They have been written as 
simply and concisely as possible, with the 
hope that they may be remembered and 
acted upon in time of need. 

POISONS. 

In all cases of poisoning there should 
he no avoidable delay in summon¬ 
ing a physician. The most important 
thing is that the stomach should 


be emptied at once. If the patient 
is able to swallow this may be 
accomplished by emetics, such as mus¬ 
tard and water, a teaspoonful of mustard 
to a glass of water; salt and water, pow¬ 
dered ipecac and copious draughts of 
lukewarm water. Vomiting may also be 
induced by tickling the back of the throat 
with a feather. When the patient begins 
to vomit care should be taken to support 
the head in order that the vomited mat¬ 
ter may be ejected at once and not swal¬ 
lowed again or drawn into the windpipe. 

Acids.—When acids have been taken 
use alkalies—lime water, magnesia and 
chalk water; follow with mucilaginous 
drinks—flour and water, flaxseed tea, etc. 

Opium and Other Narcotics.—Cold 
water should be dashed over the face and 
head, the body flicked with a wet towel 
and an emetic given, such as mustard and 
water, and the patient must be kept awake. 
This may be accomplished by walking the 
patient and giving doses of strong cof¬ 
fee. If necessary artificial respiration, as 
described in the treatment of drowning 
persons, should be used. 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


333 


Alcoholic Poison.—Use emetics—ipe¬ 
cac, mustard and water, sulphate of zinc 
and water—after which use strong cof¬ 
fee and keep the body warm. 

Strychnine.—After emetics have been 
given the patient should be disturbed as 
little as possible, for the least thing in¬ 
duces a convulsive attack. The most im¬ 
portant thing is to keep the person warm 
and quiet. Bromide of potassium may be 
given, twenty grains at a dose, repeated 
every hour. 

Salts of Mercury and Arsenic.—These 
are commonly used as bug poisons and are 
powerful irritants, very often fatal, and 
when taken the whites of eggs and milk 
should be freely given, or flour and water, 
followed by an emetic. 

Carbolic Acid.—Oleaginous substances, 
olive oil, sweet oil, etc., alcohol and water, 
lime water, sulphate of soda and mag¬ 
nesia, followed by emetics should be ad¬ 
ministered at once. Stimulants should be 
given, as there is always shock. 

Oxalic, Sulphuric, Hydrochloric and 
Nitric Acids.—Use the oleaginous drinks 
described for carbolic acid, and follow 
with flaxseed tea. 

Chloroform, Chloral and Ether.—Use 
cold applications on the head and chest 
and artificial respiration. 

Iodine and Antimony.—Use flour and 
water or starch and water, followed by an 
emetic. 

Nitrate of Silver.—Use salt and water. 

DROWNING. 

Handle the body gently. Loosen any 
clothing. Carry the body face down¬ 
ward, with the head slightly raised. No 
time should be lost in following out the 
instructions given below, which should he 


continued for hours without ceasing, or 
until a physician, who should be sum¬ 
moned immediately, shall arrive. The 
body should he stripped of all clothing, 
rubbed dry and placed in bed in a warm 
room. Warmth should be supplied to the 
body with hot water bottles or some other 
appliances. Cleanse the mouth of any 
dirt or mucous that may be in it, and draw 
the tongue forward with a handkerchief, 
holding it with the finger and thumb. 
This is most important, as it opens the 
windpipe, and should not be neglected. 
The patient should be placed upon his 
hack, with head and shoulders slightly 
elevated. The operator, standing behind 
his head, should grasp the arms just above 
the elbow and draw them steadily and 
gently upward until they meet above the 
head, then bring them down to the side 
of the chest slowly and persistently at the 
rate of twenty times to the minute. These 
movements imitate expiration and inspir¬ 
ation. The trunk and limbs should be 
rubbed when breathing commences, and 
brandy and water may then be given. 

BURNS AND SCALDS. 

In severe cases the patient will suffer a 
great deal from shock. A stimulant 
should he given and the patient kept 
warm, wrapped in a blanket. The. parts 
burned should be wrapped in common 
white wadding after an application of 
lime water and linseed oil, equal parts; 
castor oil, flour and treacle, baking soda 
and water or lotion of carbolic, consist¬ 
ing of a teaspoonful of carbolic to a quart 
of water, has been applied. 

LIME IN THE EYE. 

Use a lotion of sugar and water or 
vinegar and water. 






334 


BOOK OF THE TIMES' 


FAINTING. 

Lay the person flat upon the back, 
loosen the clothing, allow plenty of fresh 
air, apply cold applications to the face 
and warmth to the feet. 

FITS AND APOPLEXY. 

Raise the head, loosen the clothing and 
apply cold applications to the head. 

BLEEDING AT THE NOSE. 

This may usually be arrested by putting 
a plug of lint into each nostril and cold 
applications to the forehead and nape of 
the neck. Hot water or powdered alum 
may also be used, snuffed up the nostrils, 
or the vapors of turpentine. 

BONES IN THE THROAT. 

If a fish or other bone lodges in the 
throat insert the forefinger and press upon 
the root of the tongue. This will induce 
vomiting. 

Another simple method is to get upon 
all fours and cough, or else take an emetic 
of mustard and water. 

CONTUSIONS AND BRUISES. 

Cold is the best application, either an 
ice bag or a piece of lint soaked in a solu¬ 
tion of lead or boracic acid. If of a 
severe nature keep the lint moistened con¬ 
tinuously. Tincture of arnica and witch 
hazel are also good remedies. 

CUTS AND WOUNDS. 

In bleeding from wounds or recent am¬ 
putations press the finger or hand over 
the bleeding point, pressing on the main 
artery supplying blood to the wound. If 
this is not possible apply a bandage as 
tightly as possible above the wound. By 
tying a handkerchief loosely around the 
limb, thrusting a short stick through it 


and twisting it tightly an excellent tournh 
quet may be improvised. 

The blood from an artery which has 
been severed is a bright red and comes 
in spurts with each beat of the heart. 
The color of the blood from an ordinary 
cut is of a dark purplish shade, and flows 
in a steady stream. All cuts should be 
washed out with warm water, to which 
one or two drops of carbolic acid has been 
added. The edges of the wound should 
then be brought together and held in posi¬ 
tion by strips of plaster, then bound up 
tightly with clean bandages. 

SNAKE BITES. 

The director of the New York Zoo-' 
logical Society says that reptiles, and 
supposedly venomous animals, yearly 
scare many thousands of persons to death. 

The curator of snakes in this institu¬ 
tion relates the following incident: 

“I was in the heart of the cotton-mouth 
moccasin country a few years ago mak¬ 
ing a collection. One of my negro help¬ 
ers swore that he had been bitten by a 
highly poisonous snake, and that he had 
saved his life only by getting dead drunk. 
I asked him to show me a specimen of the 
snake that had bitten him the next time 
he saw one, and a day or so later he 
pointed one out to me in the river. I 
spent half an hour chasing it, and when 
I had it at last, I found it was just a 
copper-bellied snake, which is every bit 
as harmless as the garter snake.” 

This experienced scientist says that the 
danger of any one’s being bitten by a 
poisonous snake is very slight. 

“A rattler will run whenever he can, 
and he always warns you when you come 
upon him unawares. A copperhead, also. 




Pond lily beds as an example of tropical vegetation in city parks. 




















BOOK OF THE TIMES 


330 


always tries to run away when a human 
being approaches; I have seen them scur¬ 
rying away before me many a time. Of 
course, if it is in a dusty road, it can not 
easily get out of your way; but if you 
can step upon it when it is in full view, 
yours is the blame. As for the cotton- 
mouth moccasin, which is not found north 
of the Carolinas, it also runs, and, more¬ 
over, hides away in the swamps out of 
the way of travel. To these innate traits 
of the venomous reptiles is due the fact 
that residents in sections infested by them 
are practically free from danger." 

WHAT TO DO WHEN REALLY 
BITTEN BY A VENOMOUS 
ANIMAL. 

Whatever the portion of the body bit¬ 
ten, at once apply a ligature between the 
bite and the heart. If the hand has been 
bitten, put a ligature upon the forearm, 
about midway of wrist and elbow. A 
handkerchief will do, twisted tight by the 
use of a stick, until the flow of blood 
ceases, a condition which is easily ascer¬ 
tained, and can be brought about in a very 
few moments, an important point to re¬ 
member, for the victim does not want to 
get unduly excited, thereby aiding the 
poison by stimulating the circulation and 
hindering quick, calm action. 

The ligature firmly secured, proceed to 
treat the wound itself; if you are accom¬ 
panied, your companion can be putting 
on the ligature while you are saving time 
looking after the wound. 

If the snake has bitten squarely there 
will be two wounds, one made by each 
fang, through which the poison is injected 
into the victim. With a sharp instru¬ 


ment scarify each wound to its depth, 
making the cut in line with the other 
wound. Then scarify again, this time 
across the first cut. Be sure to cut to 
the full depth of the wound, so that the 
entire infected region will be laid open. 
If you notice smaller lacerations, caused 
by the reptile's teeth, scarify them also. 
They will be little more than skin deep, 
while the fang of the average poisonous 
snake, except the Florida species, is about 
one-quarter of an inch in length. A razor 
is the best instrument to use, since it cuts 
quickly, deeply and with only a tingling 
sensation, owing to its delicate sharpness. 
But, whatever the instrument, cut to the 
required depth. 

Next, proceed to suck the wound for all 
you are worth, provided there is neither 
abrasion, sore nor bad tooth in your 
mouth, through which the poison could 
enter your system. The average mouth, 
however, is in a healthy condition, in 
which case no risk is run. Let us hope 
yours is riotously healthy. Spit the blood 
out, and keep on sucking diligently; suck 
as long as there is a possibility of bring¬ 
ing blood. 

Now pour into the wound a solution of 
permanganate of potash; it is easily ob¬ 
tained. A four-ounce vial of this solution 
is sufficient, and enough crystals should 
have been dropped into boiled water to 
make it wine red; a few will do the work. 
Thoroughly saturate the wounds, getting 
the solution away down into them; it 
oxidizes the poison and destroys its toxic 
power. If you have a hypodermic syringe 
handy, follow up by injecting a very little 
of the solution around the wounds about 
three-quarters of an inch away. 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IX THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


33 ; 


THE USE OF WHISKY. 

The wounds thus bathed, take enough 
whisky to stimulate you, and no more. 
In the case of a man this is about half a 
wineglassful. and for a woman or child 
perhaps not more than a tablespoonful. 
Do not take another drop until you begin 
to feel depressed or blue. Then renew 
the stimulant, being careful not to take 
more than before, and so continue. 

The popular mind holds that the only 
correct thing to do when bitten by a 
snake is to dose the victim with whisky 
until he is dead drunk. Such treatment 
is the worst that could be imagined. The 
reaction always following a too liberal in¬ 
dulgence in whisky tends to paralyze the 
heart. That is also the effect of the snake 
poison, so they both join hands to bring 
about the victim's destruction. 

WHAT NEXT TO DO. 

Send for a doctor, but do not wait for 
a doctor to come to you. Time will be 
lost, and equally as important, the exer¬ 


cise of walking will keep your blood 
stirred and stimulated naturally, which is 
the prime object in combating the poison. 
You will also perspire, and thus perhaps 
throw off some of the poison through the 
skin. Walk energetically but do not go 
so fast that you will overstimulate your¬ 
self and later bring on a harmful reaction. 

When you reach the doctor you are in 
his hands. He will dress the wound with 
antiseptics, and undoubtedly administer 
stimulants. He could inject strychnine if 
the nerves were numb, as it is a terrific 
excitant. Whatever he does, your re¬ 
sponsibility ceases. 

But if you are so located that you can 
not get the assistance of a doctor, there 
is no cause for despair. Keep in as cheer¬ 
ful and normal a frame of mind as pos¬ 
sible ; regularly, whenever you feel your¬ 
self becoming depressed, take a fresh dose 
of whisky, and it is more than probable 
that vou will recover, even though vou 
may have to keep up the treatment for a 
week or more. 


VACCINATION.—ITS FRIENDS AND FOES.—ARGU¬ 
MENTS FOR AND AGAINST. 


ANTI-VACCINATION. 

At the anti-vaccination meetings it is 
pointed out that people suffer from lack 
of knowledge and that the theory of vac¬ 
cination has not been strengthened by 
virtue of its age. 

The most important objections made 
to the inoculation of virus as now prac¬ 
ticed by most physicians are that it can¬ 
not be proven that smallpox epidemics 
have been lessened by its practice; that 
vaccine causes the system to become im¬ 
pregnated with different poisons; that 


there is an increased mortality from dis¬ 
eases inoculated into the system by vac¬ 
cination. and the law of compulsion is 
considered un-American. It is claimed 
that vaccination is a “risky business" and 
a “filthy fad," which originated in a dairy 
maid superstition, first promulgated by a 
barber named Jenner. 

To prove its inefficiency such authori¬ 
ties as Dr. Charles Ruata. Dr. Buckner 
Basel, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Cruewell, Dr. 
Stowell and the late Herbert Spencer are 
freely quoted. A number of periodicals 




338 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


are published in support of the anti-vac¬ 
cination theory, notably the Anti-Vaccin- 
ation Inquirer of London and one pub¬ 
lished in Terre Haute, Indiana, called 
Vaccination. Dr. Gregory, medical direc¬ 
tor of the London smallpox hospital, in 
the Medical Times of January, 1852, is 
quoted as saying: “The idea of extin¬ 
guishing smallpox by vaccination is as 
absurd as it is chimerical and it is as irra¬ 
tional as it is presumptuous.” Another 
authority cited is Dr. Stowell, an English 
physician of twenty years’ experience, 
who says: “The general declaration of 
my patients enables me to proclaim that 
the vaccination notion is not only a de¬ 
lusion, but a curse to humanity.” Charles 
Ruata in the New York Medical Journal 
July 22, 1899, makes the startling state¬ 
ment that 98.5 per cent of the population 
were vaccinated and yet in the years 
1887-88-89 42,272 deaths from smallpox 
occurred. In Italy there were 16,000 
deaths, while 98 per cent of the people 
were vaccinated. The sweeping statement 
is made that “about 60 per cent of all 
physicians who have practiced their pro¬ 
fessions more than five years know that 
vaccination is not only dangerous, but en¬ 
tirely ineffective as a preventive against 
smallpox.” 

Many physicians claim that immunity 
can be secured by the use of certain pre¬ 
ventive remedies. Revaccination is 
strongly objected to on the ground that 
no doctor is certain from the cicatrix 
whether revaccination is necessary or not. 
One prominent speaker cited the case of 
a man who was declared immune on ac¬ 
count of a remarkably good cicatrix, when 
the fact was it was only the scar from the 
bite of a colt. The opposition holds that 


doctors who practice it should be made to 
pay damages in case of death or dis¬ 
ability. They say that the mildness of 
modern epidemics is due solely to isola¬ 
tion and sanitation. “The whole world is 
vaccinated and yet smallpox exists.” 

Statistics from the armies of different 
countries are given to prove that soldiers 
vaccinated and revaccinated many times 
have not been immune from attacks of 
the disease. In fact, it is asserted that 
epidemics begin with the vaccinated and 
the revaccinated. 

Some of the prominent speakers at 
anti-vaccination meetings have been those 
whose objection to the practice is based 
upon the loss by death of some member 
of the family as a result of vaccination 
and it is held that compulsion under such 
painful circumstances is little less than 
cruelty. In support of their opposition to 
its continuance many statistics have been 
compiled to show the cause of death to 
have been from vaccination. It is said 
that in England 25,000 children are an¬ 
nually slaughtered by disease inoculated 
into the system by virus, while by far a 
greater number are disabled or injured 
for life. It is contended that there is no 
definite way for physicans to determine 
the character of the vaccine used, and that 
there is no way of testing the absolute 
purity of what is placed upon the market. 
I11 the north of England a hoivse to house 
canvass was made for the purpose of gain¬ 
ing trustworthy information, with the re¬ 
sult that 750 deaths were alleged to be 
due to vaccination, while there were 3,135 
cases of injury recorded. It is cited that 
nine cases of lockjaw occurred in Phila¬ 
delphia in three days. Another instance 
mentioned is that out of forty inoculated 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


330 


children nine died of vaccinia. In 1885 
Dr. Andua, a prominent physician of As- 
prieres, vaccinated forty-two children. 
All were attacked with fever, and six were 
dead the next day. The health office of 
Berlin showed in 1891 1.000 deaths re¬ 
sulting from vaccination. 

It is contended that no correct estimate 
is possible of the harm done by this 
vicious practice, as many fatalities are 
covered up; but it is responsible for the 
long death lists of erysipelas, heart dis¬ 
ease. tuberculosis, pneumonia, kidney dis¬ 
ease and insanity. In fact, almost any 
disease that flesh is heir to may be at¬ 
tributed to vaccination. Herbert Spencer 
is quoted as saying “that the ravages of 
influenza of recent years are directly at¬ 
tributable to vaccination and that la grippe 
was never such a menace to health until 
vaccination became almost universal.” 
Infantile syphilis increased in England, 
from 1853 to 1883, in propertion to vac¬ 
cination. Dr. Cruewell, considered by 
many a high medical authority, swore 
under oath: “Every inoculation of so- 
called prolectic pox is syphilitic poison¬ 
ing.” Thus it is contended that even if 

o 

smallpox has virtually been annihilated, 
general mortality has increased, and there 
is every reason to attribute this to the 
practice of vaccination. 

The fact that the town of Leicester, in 
England, has prohibited vaccination and 
that smallpox has been unknown there 
for vears is held up as an example of 
what all towns would be without it. 

Many of the opposition justify their 
opinions simply upon the ground that 
compulsion interferes with liberty and 
that taxation without education is tyrany. 
A strong expression used is that “rebel¬ 


lion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The 
claim is made that the law was not passed 
at the instigation of nor by the wish of the 
people, but that it was through the efforts 
of “a few political doctors and in the in¬ 
terests of the vaccine trust.” 

In refusing to comply with the law, 
many agitators express themselves as be¬ 
ing unwilling to become martyrs to a 
superstition, to submit to any interference 
with their religious belief (to this class 
belong Christian Scientists, faith cure ad¬ 
herents and various kinds of healers), but 
insist upon the right of every American 
citizen to enjoy that “American liberty 
which is supposed to grant to each and 
every one freedom of individual belief and 
action.” 

IN FAVOR OF VACCINATION. 

The majority of medical practitioners 
throughout the world are strong in their 
support of the Jenner theory of vaccina¬ 
tion and scarcely consider it worth while 
to attempt to refute the views of the 
“fanatical anti-vaccination party.” Such 
authorities as John F. J. Sykes of Lon¬ 
don, John William Moore of Dublin, 
Pasteur, Koch and Sir John Simons will 
be freely quoted in this treatise. The mass 
of evidence confirming the protective 
power of vaccination and revaccination is 
irresistible and opposition to it is due 
principally to the objection to compul¬ 
sion. The objects of compulsion are the 
absolute necessity of protecting the larg¬ 
est percentage possible of the population 
for the benefit of the whole community; 
to secure a regular and sufficient supply 
of lymph; to prevent undue haste and 
insufficiency, inferiority, or failure of 
lymph in times of panic. The abolition 



340 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


of compulsion would mean the neglect of 
vaccination and the accumulation of un¬ 
protected persons in a community, so that 
in the panic produced by an epidemic vac¬ 
cination would be overtaxed, with serious 
results, and there would be an insufficient 
supply of lymph. The ignorant and the 
improvident neglect vaccination as they 
do other prudent measures that bear 
remote results. Many of the medical fra¬ 
ternity contend that it might be well to do 
away with compulsion, as pestilence is one 
of the agencies by which overpopulation 
is regulated and that it usually picks off 
the weak and those not well fitted to battle 
with life. 

Statistics showing the efficacy of vac¬ 
cination seem to be conclusive, but it will 
be seen that they differ widely from those 
introduced by anti-vaccinationists. Both 
factions are positive that figures presented 
by them are correct. Regard is certainly 
due to the opinions of such eminent 
authorities as served on the German Vac¬ 
cination Commission of 1884. In their 
opinion the credit of diminishing mor¬ 
tality in Germany was due to compul¬ 
sory revaccination. Most important evi¬ 
dence is shown in reports compiled in 
England and Wales. Before the intro¬ 
duction of vaccination there were 3,000 
deaths in every million of the population 
from smallpox, while in 1890 this disease 
caused only fifteen deaths in England, 
and the annual number of deaths in ten 
years, 1881-90, inclusive, was one-seven¬ 
tieth part only of the death rate of pre¬ 
vaccination times. It is held that vaccin¬ 
ation not only greatly diminished the 
number stricken, but that it greatly in¬ 
fluenced the death rate among those at¬ 
tacked. In Sheffield, in the outbreak of 


1887-88, of 4,151 vaccinated patients 200 
died, or 4.8 per cent ; of 552 unvaccinated 
patients 274 died, or 49.6 per cent. If 
the death rate of vaccinated children un¬ 
der ten years of age, during this same 
epidemic, had been at the same rate as 
that of the unvaccinated there would have 
been 4,400 deaths, whereas there were 
only 9 such deaths. 

In Prussia the mortality from small¬ 
pox in the year 1835 was 27 per every 
100,000 persons, while in 1886, vaccina¬ 
tion and revaccination being obligatory, 
the death rate was reduced to but 0.39 
per 100,000 inhabitants. Only one great 
epidemic has occurred since vaccination 
was made obligatory—that of 1871-72—• 
while in the preceding century there were 
32 epidemics. The pro-vaccinationists 
do not claim that the mildness of modern 
epidemics is due solely to vaccination. 
Notification, isolation and disinfection are 
admitted as supplementary measures, 
while the severity and extent depend 
largely upon the season, dwelling, mode 
of life and care of the skin. 

This is conceded to be a different age 
from that of Jenner, and yet certain con¬ 
ditions exist now that are conducive to 
the spread of the disease that did not ex¬ 
ist in his time. Population has increased, 
particularly in cities, means of locomotion 
have multiplied and there is a closer com¬ 
mercial relation between nations than 
ever before, so that infection is easily 
transferred from one country to another. 

Some persons should not be submitted 
to the operation of vaccination, as its 
success depends largely upon the condi¬ 
tion of the blood and system generally. 
Many physicians refuse to practice it at 
all unless they have a personal knowledge 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


341 


of the constitution of the patient. That 
death is sometimes due to its practice is 
admitted by those favoring it, but this is 
always the result of accident. According 
to the German commission previously re^ 
ferred to, “no probable increase of any 
particular disease has taken place as the 
consequence of vaccination.” Any open 
sore is liable to infection. Death is fre¬ 
quently caused by no more serious acci¬ 
dent than running a sliver into one’s fin¬ 
ger. 'Considering the immense number of 
vaccinations performed and with the same 
constant danger of infection as to any 
wound, it is quite extraordinary that so 
few fatalities occur. Want of care and 
absence of antiseptic precautions or use 
of human lymph are causes of infection 
or poisoning. Many fatalities have been 
traced to improper cleansing of the vac¬ 
cinating needle. It has been definitely 
determined that only animal lymph should 
be used. The great advantage of the use 
of calf lymph is that it sweeps away any 
suspicion of the inoculation of other dis¬ 
eases. Syphilis cannot he communicated 
to animals. Lymph is now being prepared 
from carefully selected calves that are 
quarantined and closely observed for some 
length of time before vaccination, and be- 
fore placing the lymph on the market the 
animal should be killed and tests made 
upon the body to insure its absolute 
healthiness. 

Dr. Cory, the director of the animal 
vaccination station of the local govern¬ 
ment board, in his evidence before the 
royal commission of England states that 
from 1882-89 32,002 vaccinations were 
performed with calf lymph and that there 
were only eight deaths. Of these only 
two could be reasonably attributed to vac¬ 


cination, namely, two cases of wound dis¬ 
ease—cellulitis and erysipelas. This mor¬ 
tality is probably not even so high as that 
resulting from common cuts and 
scratches. 

The case of the loss of six children out 
of forty-two vaccinated by Dr. Andua in 
1885 as so frequently referred to by anti¬ 
vaccinationists, is explained by P. Bro- 
nardel of Paris, who shows that death 
was due to the use of human virus. That 
Leicester, England, has prohibited vac¬ 
cination for years, and has escaped a 
scourge is due wholly to the fact that it 
• is surrounded by a population which is 
protected by vaccination. 

The evidence so far leads to the con¬ 
clusion that the best defense of a com¬ 
munity against smallpox is not the repeal 
of the law of compulsion, but in adopting 
the following measures: The use of calf 
lymph only, compulsory primary vaccina¬ 
tion, in infancy, occasional revaccina¬ 
tion, isolation of imported cases of dis¬ 
ease, disinfection and sanitation. The 
present agitation will tend to educate the 
people of the community, will make physi¬ 
cians more careful in their selection of 
lymph, care of instruments and cleanli¬ 
ness of wounds. 

The existence of the disease in the 
Lhiited States to-day is due in the main to 
individuals who resist attempts for the 
protection of the population. No man is 
responsible to himself alone for the care 
of his own body. An unvaccinated group 
of persons in a community are a menace 
to the health of the entire population, and 
it is contended that no one has the right 
to endanger the life of the entire com¬ 
munity by refusing to comply with the 
law. 




342 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


American liberty should grant to that freedom should be, to a certain de- 
every citizen freedom of individual he- gree, restricted, 
lief and action, but there are times when 

HOW TO DETECT SYMPTOMS OF CONSUMPTION AND 
DIRECTIONS TO PREVENT ITS SPREAD. 


During the last few years the state 
hoard of health has conducted exhaustive 
researches on the prevalence of consump¬ 
tion in Illinois, through which it was 
found that the disease is responsible for 
more deaths than typhoid fever, scarlet 
fever, diphtheria, all forms of bronchitis, 
influenza, whooping cough, measles and 
smallpox combined. It was also found 
that those dying from consumption were 
usually in the prime of life and of ages 
at which men are most valuable to them¬ 
selves, their families and the state. Of 
the 7,000 persons who died from con¬ 
sumption in the state in 1903, 4,500 were 
between the ages of 20 and 50. 

The estimated loss each year to the 
state from this disease alone is about $36,- 
000,000. The investigations have demon¬ 
strated that an especial climate is not es¬ 
sential to the cure of consumption, and 
that the disease is curable. 

The board recently issued a circular, 
embodying the result of its investigations. 
On the subject of “How to avoid con¬ 
sumption” the following is given: 

“The important points in prevention 
are: Pure air, proper clothing, good 

food properly cooked, moderate rest and 
recreation, avoidance of all excesses; in 
other words, moderate living. The ex¬ 
cessive use of alcoholic liquors lowers 
vitality, favors infection and hastens a 
fatal termination. 


DIRECTIONS FOR SUPPRESSING 
CONSUMPTION. 

“Don't spit on the sidewalk, floor or 
any place where the sputum will become 
dry and permit the dissemination of the 
germs which it contains. No spit, no 
consumption. If you are a consumptive, 
the mere spitting on the floor of your 
apartments may cause a further infection 
of your lungs. Favor the enactment and 
enforcement of laws prohibiting spitting 
on sidewalks, in street cars or other con¬ 
veyances, or on floors or in hallways. 

“If you are a woman, do not wear 
skirts which sweep the sidewalk, and thus 
carry disease into the house. 

“Don't put into your mouth money or 
articles which have been promiscuously 
handled by others. 

“Don't neglect to wash your hands 
before you eat. 

“Don’t sleep or live, if it can be 
avoided, in a room with a consumptive. 
Don't kiss a consumptive. 

“Don't occupy premises formerly occu¬ 
pied by a consumptive unless the prem¬ 
ises have been thoroughly disinfected. 
Remember that the germ of consumption 
retains its vitality for a long time. 

“Don’t drink out of any glass, cup. or 
vessel which has been used by another 
unless it has been carefully washed. Let 
this apply to all drinking and eating 
utensils. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


343 


"Don’t work in a room where there is 
no fresh air. Have plenty in your sleep¬ 
ing and living rooms in both summer and 
winter. Fresh air helps to kill the germ. 
Avoid mouth breathing. Breathe through 
your nostrils. If unable to do this con¬ 
sult a physician. 

COLDS OFTEN BEGIN CON¬ 
SUMPTION. 

“The history of a large percentage of 
consumption cases is the history cf neg¬ 
lected colds. Watch your general health. 
A prescription for a cough may save your 
life and the lives of others. Avoid patent 
medicines. Don't moisten your finger or 
thumb with your saliva when you turn 
the leaves of a book or handle money 
or papers.” 

The board has established a laboratory 
at Springfield in which an examination of 
the sputum of suspected tuberculosis cases 
will be made without cost, provided the 
patient is unable to meet the expense of 
such an examination. Communications 
should be addressed to the secretary of 
the state board of health, Springfield, Ill. 

On the symptoms of the disease the cir¬ 
cular has the following: 

“The onsets of all cases are by no means 
the same. In fact, many people have con¬ 
sumption and the disease is arrested in 
the very early stages before there have 
been any symptoms which would lead to 
a suspicion that the disease existed. 

“The first symptoms may be loss of ap¬ 
petite and weight, fatigue on slight ex¬ 
ertion, rapid pulse, fever in the afternoon 
and evening and a cough which is most 
noticeable in the morning. The cough 
may have existed for months with prac¬ 
tically no impairment of the general 
health, or the slight, hacking cough us¬ 


ually worse in the morning, may have 
been so insignificant or may have occa¬ 
sioned so little annoyance, that the patient 
will deny having a cough at all or will 
remember it only after careful ques¬ 
tioning. 

“Some cases of consumption begin with 
simple hoarseness. There are other in¬ 
dividuals who are subject to ‘colds,’ 
these colds occurring with increasing 
frequency and each one resisting treat¬ 
ment more stubbornly than the one which 
preceded it, these attacks leading up to 
the one which remains. Such an onset 
is so insidious that the disease is often 
firmly established before the patient’s 
suspicion as to the nature of his ailment 
is at all aroused. Many cases progress 
to a serious stage, supposed to be ‘chronic 
grippe,' ‘chronic malaria' or ‘dyspepsia.’ 

“Gradual loss of weight should make a 
person suspicious and should cause him to 
seek the best medical aid for careful physi¬ 
cal examination and examination of the 
sputum for evidences. This is especially 
the case if, in addition to the loss of 
weight, there is loss of appetite with in¬ 
creased frequency of the heart beat, after¬ 
noon fever and morning cough. Any or 
all of these symptoms should cause the 
patient to seek at once the most compe¬ 
tent medical advice.” 

STATE HOSPITALS. 

Members of the board of health believe 
that the establishment of state hospitals 
will strikingly decrease the mortality and 
limit the spread of this disease, and they 
advocate strongly the establishment of 
such hospitals. It is expected that in the 
coming meetings of the legislature some 
substantial progress in this direction will 
be made. 



344 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


HOW TO AVOID THE WHITE PLAGUE. 


MONSTER RAVAGES OF CON¬ 
SUMPTION. 

Dr. H. M. Thomas says: “Of the 90,- 
000,000 people in our land today 9,000,- 
000 will die of tuberculosis unless we de¬ 
velop methods for its prevention. 

“I desire to plead for such restrictive 
measures that this universal white plague 
which claims for its victims those in the 
flush and bloom of youth, in the prime 
of life, coming from the ranks of the fair¬ 
est and best in our land, with all the 
possibilities of life opening before them, 
may be saved from tuberculosis. 

“The age of those dying from tubercu¬ 
losis averages from 18 to 40 years. This 
is usually the most productive period of 
life. The best results of education, cul¬ 
ture and labor are then achieved. The 
climax of one's usefulness to the world 
is at its zenith. What an appalling fact 
to appreciate then that these deaths occur 
from a disease which is absolutely pre¬ 
ventable. 

VAST FINANCIAL LOSS. 

“Viewed from the standpoint of money 
loss alone, $10,000 being the legal amount 
a human life is valued at in Illinois, all 
the expenses of maintaining our great 
government are not to be compared with 
the financial loss sustained by the nation 
from tuberculosis. The annual economic 
loss in Illinois is over $36,000,000, or at 
least $100,000 daily. 

“How the people live is one of the most 
pertinent questions that can occupy our 
time, and the causes that lead to their 
death are of great importance. Nothing- 
can be of higher value than to teach the 
race how to live longer, healthier and hap¬ 


pier lives. Many untimely deaths attrib¬ 
uted to the mysterious ways of Provi¬ 
dence are due to rotten potatoes in a sun¬ 
less cellar. Medical science declares 
tuberculosis is communicable, prevent¬ 
able and curable. 

“Where pure air, pure water, pure food, 
judicious exercise, abundant sunshine 
can be had the disease cannot exist. The 
vast storehouse of life-giving forces is 
found in the inexhaustible resources of 
nature's laboratory. 

OZONE AS LIFE-GIVER. 

“From the unpierced heights and lim¬ 
itless expanse of the trackless skies comes 
the life-giving ozone. Its presence in our 
blood brings renewed life and vigor. The 
flagging forces of nature find in its subtle 
chemistry the antithesis of decay. The 
sodden skin, the halting step, the luster¬ 
less eye, the clouded brain, under its vital¬ 
izing influence, are rejuvenated. Would 
we find freedom from tuberculosis, flee 
to the orchard, the meadow, the sunlit 
plain and the majestic mountain top. 
There, bathed in nature's electrifying 
energy, will tuberculosis vanish. There 
will unbounding buoyancy supplant the 
insidious ravages of disease. 

“Pure air, pure air, the most wide¬ 
spread of nature's blessings, and yet the 
hardest of them to get! How few trust 
pure air. Pure air is the one race neces¬ 
sity that can never be combined in a trust! 
In all the world it is that of which there 
is the most. Out of the twenty-four 
hours, how many do we breathe pure air? 
We do not stint ourselves in food, but we 
do in oxygen. We can live weeks with¬ 
out food; but for five minutes onlv with- 






View of the Tower of London from a steamer on the Thames. Part of this famous building 
still remaining was erected by William the Conqueror in 1078. 






















346 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


out oxygen. If we are to be saved from 
tuberculosis we must breathe pure air 
twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four. 

IMPURE AIR DEADLY. 

“Oxygen reduces fever, aids digestion, 
gives refreshing sleep and heals the lungs. 
There is much fear of breathing night 
air. What other air is there to breathe at 
night but night air? Pure night air is 
healthful. Impure night air breeds 
disease. Breathe we must. There is but 
one choice, pure or impure night air. 

“What are the sources of impure air? 
Mainly the home and the workshop. 
Tuberculosis is a house disease; it de¬ 
pends upon the home for implantation, 
growth, maturity and propagation. The 
house is the granary of the bacillus. 
Houses of one kind and another are the 
ordinary means of spreading tuberculosis. 
The house is the most frequent means 
and the workshop next. This is so be¬ 
cause it takes prolonged intimate contact 
with a person, place or thing that has been 
intensely contaminated with tuberculosis 
matter to give rise to implantation. The 
home and the workshop are the two places 
where environment and sufficient length 
of contact for infection most readily exist. 
Probably three-fourths of all cases of 
tuberculosis conveyed from person to per¬ 


son are contracted in the home and one- 
fourth due to workshop environment. 

HOME SHOULD BE CLEAN. 

“Homes should be made clean, dry, 
airy and bright. Buildings in which are 
employed men and women should be made 
sanitary and have a correct standard of 
air supply and light supply. 

“What are the habits and environ¬ 
ments which make us receptive to tuber¬ 
culosis? Worry, over-work, over-exer¬ 
cise, indigestible food, loss of sleep, viti¬ 
ated air, constipation, over-stimulation. 
The four basic principles upon which 
rest salvation from tuberculosis are: 
pure air, pure water, pure food, pure 
thoughts. 

“No medicine in a bottle ever cured 
tuberculosis. Twenty-five years of scien¬ 
tific struggle in the United States has 
demonstrated the absolute failure to ef¬ 
fect a cure by drug domination. It is 
your god-given resisting power that cures. 
Collateral therapeutics, by which I mean 
baths, electricity, massage, magnetism, 
lung gymnastics, hydro-therapy, oste¬ 
opathy, etc., have their proper place and 
use as an aid to nature. But they must 
always play a secondary role, and be sub¬ 
servient to the great agencies of air, 
water, food and exercise, without which 
all would succumb.” 


DELL’S MANIA. 

Displaying all the generally accredited and it is recorded in the books of the in¬ 
symptoms of hydrophobia, William stitution as being caused by Dell’s mania, 
Scott died six weeks after being bitten a rare disease of which only a few cases 
by a dog declared by physicians not to have been treated in the institution, 
have been mad. Physicians who had at- Scott was an automobile repairer, 33 
tended the man during the last week of his years old. While returning from work- 
illness disagreed as to the cause of death, the man was bitten by a small dog which 






347 


NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


was being chased by a policeman. The 
animal already had been wounded, and 
was killed soon after it attacked Scott, 
whose right temple was slightly lacerated. 

WOUND IS NEARLY FORGOTTEN. 

Scott went at once to the office of a 
physician in Chicago, Illinois, where the 
wound was cauterized and dressed. At 
his dwelling that night he treated the in¬ 
cident lightly, and expressed no fear of 
further trouble from his injury. The 
wound healed quickly and apparently was 
forgotten by the man. 

aThree days before his death he became 
delirious. The wound again had become 
painful, and Scott complained of a con¬ 
traction of the throat muscles and in¬ 
ability to drink. He rapidly became 
worse, and the ambulance was summoned 
to take him to the county hospital. 

CASE PUZZLES PHYSICIANS. 

Although the man displayed many 
symptoms of hydrophobia, the physician 
hesitated to pronounce the case one of a 
disease, the existence of which is dis¬ 
credited by many physicians, and the po¬ 
lice were told the man was suffering from 
hysteria. At the hospital his condition 
became violent and several male attend¬ 
ants were necessary at his bedside at all 
hours to restrain him. Aversion to water, 
a barking cough, and attempts to bite his 
attendants, with many other symptoms, 
which popularly are supposed to accom¬ 
pany the ailment, were noted in the 
man’s case. 

At times Scott regained his mental 
faculties and declared his condition was 
not induced by any fear of the disease. 


ONE PHYSICIAN SAYS 
HYDROPHOBIA. 

Dr. Pugh, who first treated Scott, said 
that he is confident that hydrophobia was 
the cause of death. 

“Every symptom of the disease was 
present," he said, “and the patient was 
not the type of man who would worry 
himself into that condition. He had al¬ 
most forgotten the incident when the re¬ 
current symptoms took place. I have 
attended several cases of the disease and 
although its existence is disputed there is 
little doubt that Scott’s death was caused 
by hydrophobia.” 

TELLS OF RARE DISEASE. 

Dr. M. W. Hall of the county hos¬ 
pital staff said the patient’s death was the 
result of Dell’s mania, an extremely in¬ 
frequent mental ailment. 

“There are many causes which could 
have induced the disease,” he declared, 
“one of which might be fright and morbid 
brooding over his condition. There have 
been no cases of hydrophobia treated at 
the hospital since my entrance here.” 

HYDROPHOBIA. 

Scientists claim that real hydrophobia 
is exceedingly rare but that the saliva 
from any animal when either greatly 
heated or enraged is dangerous to the 
blood of any person. The Pasteur treat¬ 
ment by inoculation is claimed to be only 
preventative, not curative. As hydro¬ 
phobia poison is very slow the Pasteur 
method has a very successful record. The 
Buisson method is more simple and con¬ 
venient. It consists in producing an ex¬ 
haustive perspiration. A heated room 
with hot vapor, followed by hot bath, alco- 




348 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


holic stimulants and sleep under hot cov¬ 
ering, is the plan that has been also very 
successful. This may be continued by 
violent exercise and a brisk rubbing over 


the body with coarse towels dampened in 
alcohol. This treatment is said to have 
as extensive a record of success as any 
ever devised. 


APPENDICITIS. 


The frequency of public reference to 
this disease in late years has made it of 
peculiar interest. The appendix vermi- 
formis, as its name implies, is about the 
size of an ordinary goosequill attached 
to the caecum or blind bowel on the right 
side of the abdomen near the hip. This 
tiny organ has no known use and appears 
to be a relic of a larger bowel that for 
some reason has gone out of use in the 
course of the evolution of man. This 
useless organ is particularly liable to in¬ 
flammation which extends to the entire 
bowels and in its complications is very 
much dreaded and dangerous on account 
of the ulcerations produced, which finally 
eat through and let the poisonous matter 
into the cavities of the body. Its symp¬ 
toms are deep pains, tenderness, fever and 
rigidity of the abdominal wall on the 
right lower side. A surgical operation is 
an infallible cure if done before the in¬ 
flammation gets fastened upon the bowels. 
Whenever appendicitis is suspected, a 
competent and reliable physician should 
at once be consulted. 

MEAT AND APPENDICITIS. 

In Porto Rico appendicitis is not found 
among the vegetarian population, but it 
does occur among the Americans who eat 
meat, says the Parisian Journal Cosmos. 
In France, among vegetarian peoples, ap¬ 
pendicitis is very rare or not present at 
all, while the disease increases in propor¬ 
tion as the use of meat is increased. 


In Roumania statistics show that there 
is one case out of 22,000 cases of illness 
among the vegetarians, and one case out 
of 221 cases of illness among the meat 
eaters of the country. The same observa¬ 
tions might be made of Belgium, Algiers, 
Tonkin and New Caledonia. 

In the prisons and in all the closely 
packed institutions, which are always the 
easy prey to grippe, and where the regime 
is almost solely vegetarian, one might say 
there are no cases of appendicitis. At 
Clairvaux, since 1900, Dr. Lutier has 
only seen a single case of appendicitis 
among the prisoners, and at Roquette, 
during five years, there has been observed 
only two or three insignificant cases, the 
treatment of which without operation has 
only required three or four days. 

The examination of the statistics of 
many schools and convents give the same 
results, there being no appendicitis where 
the regime is vegetarian. At Nantes, 
among the Clarissas and the Carmelites, 
who are exclusively vegetarians, there is 
no appendicitis, the same being true for 
the Carmelites of Amiens and the Trap- 
pists of Blagnac. 

It is thus only reasonable that M. 
Championniere should conclude that meat 
eating favors intestinal affections and ap¬ 
pendicitis following the grippe, and that 
the reduction of this regime is to be ad¬ 
vised. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


349 


A MADSTONE AND STORIES OF ITS CURES. 


A little stone no larger than a man’s 
thumb, and not at all beautiful, is held 
priceless by its owner, and an offer of 
$5,000 for it has been refused. 

It is the “Bundy madstone.” 

It has the curious faculty of curing 
blood poison, which never yet has failed. 
When applied to snake bites, dog bites, 
or any other poisonous wound, it sticks 
close, sucking out the poison, until when 
it has finished its work it leaves the blood 
as pure as nature made it. 

Henry Bundy, of New Castle, Ind., 
owns this stone. He is 78 years old and 
it has been in this family since 1810, 
when an Indian woman presented it to 
his father. The medical profession is 
anxious to secure this little curative for 
scientific use and research. A Chicago 
university made the offer of $5,000 and 
Mr. Bundy has been urged to start a hos¬ 
pital with it. This he refuses to do, but 
he freely allows its use hy whatever suf¬ 
ferers apply. He is not rich, but no money 
can coax that precious stone from him. 

Desperate attempts have been made to 
steal it, and now the little stone is kept 
in a safe deposit vault in the First Na¬ 
tional bank of Indiana. 

A RECENT CASE. 

Malignant cases of poisoning which 
have been pronounced incurable have been 
cured by the madstone, and the latest cure 
was made on E. R. Hillman, of New 
York, who traveled post-haste to Indiana 
when his own doctor had been unable to 
extract the poison of a mad dog’s lute. 

Mr. Bundy immediately applied the 
madstone to the lacerated flesh and there 
it clung tenaciously, drawing out the fatal 


poison from the wound. The teeth of the 
suffering animal had gone through the 
flesh to the hone and the wound presented 
a most serious appearance. 

The stone clung to the wound for three 
hours, puckering the skin around it as it 
sucked out the poison. When it finally 
dropped off it was thoroughly cleansed 
and applied again but it refused to cling, 
thus showing that all the poison had been 
drawn from the system and Mr. Hillman, 
feeling perfectly well, returned to New 
York. 

He has suffered no ill effects from the 
bite and the fame of the madstone has 
grown apace since the circulation of Mr. 
Hillman’s story. Others have come forth 
with proof of its efficacy and many hos¬ 
pitals are eager to secure this valuable aid 
to medicine. 

DISCOVERED BY INDIANS. 

The madstone was discovered hy the 
Indians, who were superstitious about the 
manner in which it worked cures. Each 
Indian medicine man sought diligently for 
a madstone if his tribe did not already 
have one, and it was guarded when found 
as one of the most precious treasures of 
the tribe. 

The little stone resembles a soft tone 
and has a spongy appearance. It is of a 
light brown color, one inch long, half an 
inch wide, and one-fourth of an inch in 
thickness. But then this Bundy stone is 
only half the size of the original article, 
the other half, which is perhaps the only 
other of its kind in existence, is in the 
possession of some Indian tribe. 

When placed under a microscope the 



350 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


stone presents a brilliant appearance, 
throwing out many colors and being cov¬ 
ered with small crystals. 

A SQUAW’S GRATITUDE. 

Mr. Bundy’s father brought the stone 
to Indiana from North Carolina in 1815. 
Bundy, then a small boy, was terribly af¬ 
flicted with scrofula. An old Indian wo¬ 
man passing one day informed the parents 
that she could cure the child. On being 
asked the remedy she produced from her 
blanket this stone. It was applied to the 


fore this one was obtained by the medi¬ 
cine men of the tribe. 

When the present Mr. Bundy’s father 
died he gave the treasured stone to his 
son, Henry, together with the list of 240 
persons who had been cured of scrofula 
or saved from an attack of hydrophobia 
through its agency. 

REMARKABLE CURES. 

Mr. Henry Bundy has had the stone 
for forty years, and in that time has ef¬ 
fected with it about 150 cures. From the 



The Bundy Madstone. 

(From a photograph much enlarged.) 


sores and in two rhonths the disease was 
gone, and it has never given him any 
further trouble. She then made her home 
with the family, and on their departure 
for Indiana some years later she cut the 
stone in halves and presented Mr. Bundy 
with the piece he now has in token of her 
gratitude for the kindness shown her by 
the family. 

The stone was stated by the Indian 
woman to have been a sort of growth 
found in the stomach of a deer, and it is 
said many hundred deer were killed be- 


east and the far west, up from the south 
and down from the regions of Canada 
patients have come to Mr. Bundy to be 
cured and not once has the little stone 
failed to perform its work successfully. 

One mother brought her 12-year-old 
son all the way from California to In¬ 
diana to have Mr. Bundy place the mad- 
stone on a wound from a rusty nail. 
Blood poison had set in and the Cali¬ 
fornia physicians had told the mother that 
the limb would have to be amputated and 
declared that it was doubtful whether 








NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


351 


even such severe measures would save the 
child’s life. An old soldier of the Golden 
Gate city hearing of the case sent word 
for the child to be taken to Mr. Bundy. 
For twenty-four hours the madstone 
clung to the wound, and little by little the 
swelling and discoloration of the flesh 
around the sore subsided, and when the 
stone dropped off the little patient was 
free from all danger. 

SAVED THE BRIDE. 

The most romantic case was of a young 
couple from Texas. They had been but 
recently married, and were traveling in 
a carriage through the states. One even¬ 
ing the young woman plucked what she 
thought to be some sassafras leaves and 
began nibbling them. In a few hours 
she became ill, and upon consulting an 
Indiana doctor was told that she had been 
poisoned. The leaf had been of some 
other plant. The usual remedies were 
applied with but little success and the 
young woman grew steadily worse. 

The physician spoke of the madstone 
and its powers and said that although it 
had never been tried in such a case it was 
worth an experiment, as no harm would 
result from the trial, and the young wo¬ 
man could not possibly recover unless by 
a miracle. 

Mr. Bundy brought the stone to her 
bedside promptly, and cutting a gash in 
her left arm placed it on the wound. 
Twice the stone dropped off and hope be¬ 
gan to wane. A third trial, however, 


proved successful—the stone clung. 
Three days and three nights it drew forth 
the poison, being cleansed five times, and 
when at the close of the third night it 
tumbled off, the sufferer was out of 
danger. 

A DIFFICULT CASE. 

The longest clinging record of the 
stone was in the case of an old soldier 
whose system had been thoroughly satur¬ 
ated with poison from a bullet wound. 
The stone in this case clung for nearly 
three weeks, and during the last three 
days the sufferer experienced sharp pains 
as though he were being cut by a knife 
around where the stone clung. This is 
the only case on record where the patient 
has felt the poison being drawn from 
the system. 

When the stone refuses to adhere any 
longer to the wound it is cleansed by an 
immersion in milk and warm water. As 
the poison leaves the stone which is honey¬ 
combed, the milk and water separate; the 
milk turns a dark green, and when all the 
poison has left the stone it rises slowly 
to the surface. The stone is placed upon 
the wound after each immersion until it 
refuses to cling. 

Mr. Bundy is always ready to use his 
remarkable stone and he hopes to make 
the name of Bundy famous by the num¬ 
ber of cases pronounced incurable which 
have been successfully treated by the mad¬ 
stone. 


COLDS AND HOW TO PREVENT THEM. 

How to keep from catching cold is the winter any more than in the summer, but 
most perplexing of all winter problems, actually she does. 

A woman should not take cold in the It was only a little while ago that the 




352 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Kneippists tolcl people that they would 
never catch cold if they would only 
toughen themselves. Here are some of 
the remedies of the Kneippists: Drink 
cold water; bathe in cold water; liquid 
food; go in a natural state as much as 
possible; let your body breathe. 

Walking in the grass was their most 
famous cure, and it was a common sight 
to see ladies walking in the grass in Cen¬ 
tral park in the morning, in their bare 
feet, trying to take in health and nerve 
force through the pores in the soles of 
their feet. 

Nervous people, and people who caught 
cold easily, were specially advised to walk 
barefooted in the grass every morning be¬ 
fore breakfast. 

If you go to the French cures to-day, 
you will see this same custom. Pretty 
young women and homely old ones are 
out early in the morning, barefooted and 
walking in the grass. They choose lawns 
with the deepest growth, so that the 
ankles as well as the soles of the feet may 
benefit. 

But, somehow, walking in the grass 
barefooted before breakfast does not al¬ 
ways keep people from taking cold. 

Yet to avoid taking cold is not at all 
difficult, if you will only get out of the 
habit of taking cold. The habit of catch¬ 
ing cold grows upon one. One cold leads 
to another until the colds become chronic. 

There are ways to keep from taking 
cold in winter, and here they are. Follow 
them and you will never have a cold. 

Begin by getting rid of your present 
cold. 

Eat regularly. Colds seldom come if 
the stomach is properly filled. 

Don’t go out into the cold air on an 


empty stomach. If you are invited out 
to dinner, take a cracker and a sip of 
wine before you go. If wine drinking is 
against your principles, then take a swal¬ 
low of hot milk or even of hot water. 

Never worry. Worry prevents diges¬ 
tion and gives one a cold. If worry as¬ 
sails you, throw it off, for it will surely 
breed a cold. 

Don't overload your stomach. And if 
you feel chilly, take a dose of calomel. 
This is the advice of a physician who says 
that colds can be warded off in this way. 

There is a great professional beauty 
in England who keeps her looks all win¬ 
ter by doing certain things. 

First, she sleeps in a very hot room. 
This is contrary to custom. But she says 
that a hot room well aired, with the win¬ 
dows open and the heat pouring in, is 
the best for comfortable sleep. 

Colds come in the night, when the body 
is little fitted to resist the attacks of cold. 
Sleep in a warm room, with plenty of 
covers over you and the windows open. 
That is the way to keep from taking cold. 
Don't sleep cold. 

If you feel that you have taken cold, 
go on liquid food. Queen Alexandra for 
twenty-five years has made it a practice 
to go on liquid food at least one day a 
week. She gives her stomach a rest. 

She used to be a victim to coughs. 
One winter her physician, a specialist 
from Berlin, took her in hand and gave 
her these rules, which were faithfully fol¬ 
lowed out: 

Liquid food one day a week, and noth¬ 
ing else. The food consisted of con¬ 
somme, raw eggs, broths and all kinds of 
sweet wines. Crackers were also al¬ 
lowed. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


353 


When she went out she was bundled 
up to keep out the cold. She was advised 
to put on all the clothing she needed. 

Then there was another rule, and this 
was to wear no flannels in the house in 
winter. Keep the rooms at summer heat, 
which is just under seventy degrees, and 
you will need no flannels. It is as warm 
in your boudoir in winter as it is in sum¬ 
mer. Therefore, you need no flannels. 

But, when you go out, be sure to bun¬ 
dle up well. That is the way to do. Keep 
the body at an even temperature all the 
year around. 

As to bathing in the winter time, cut 
it out. Don't go crazy on the subject of 
baths. In old fashioned times they had 
few bathtubs, and there were fewer colds. 

Women get up in the morning on a 
zero day and plunge into a tub of cold 
water. They are weakened by their long 
night's fast—for one does not take food 
when one is asleep—and, then on an 
empty stomach, they plunge into the wa¬ 
ter, lowering their vitality still more. 

Bathe enough for all practical purposes, 
but do not go crazy on the subject of cold 
water baths. Keep the Ixxly warm and 
comfortable. 

Catching cold is largely a matter of 
common sense. One New York woman 
takes a light sweet wine when she feels 
a chill coming on. A Baltimore beauty 
eoes in for a little whisky when she feels 
cold. And before going out into the cold 
air she takes a teaspoonful of brandy, or 
of whisky, or any other stimulant she 
has handy. It keeps her from catching 
cold. 

Women who do not take stimulants 
can sip hot milk or hot water. There is 


a woman who takes a cup of old fashioned 
catnip tea. 

The English women ward off chills 
with a cup of good tea, and never would 
they think of venturing out upon a very 
cold day without a cup to start the cir¬ 
culation. On coming in they drink tea 
again. 

Whatever the beverage may be, don’t 
neglect to take something, just to take 
off the chill and start the blood to circu¬ 
lating. Even coffee is better than nothing 
at all. 

It is generally supposed that wet feet 
give one a cold. On the contrary, they 
are not injurious. You can walk half a 
day with wet shoes and catch no cold. 
But, of course, you must remove them as 
soon as you stop exercising. 

A Washington woman came down with 
a severe cold in her head. She was so 
hoarse she could not speak. Consulting 
a doctor she learned how to cure her cold. 

“I am to stand in line with Mrs. Roose¬ 
velt tomorrow evening,” she said; “what 
in the world can I do to get back my good 
looks ?” 

The doctor advised her to wring a pair 
of stockings out of ice water. “Now,” 
said he, “put on two pairs of heavy woolen 
stockings over them and go to bed." 

She stayed in bed all that day, sleeping 
and sipping hot tea. And the next morn¬ 
ing she awoke perfectly well. 

Society women these days are taking 
the rest cure for colds. They give up 
everything and go to bed. It is the best 
thing in the world. 

They lie in bed for a week with a book 
sleeping and reading and writing, doing 
anything except working. It is rest of 




354 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


mind as well as rest of body that they 
need. 

Exercise will work off colds. Eat your 
meals regularly and take enough out of 
door exercise and you will be pretty sure 
not to take cold. If you are chilly, take 
a dose of something to set the blood cir¬ 
culating and then get out in the open air 
and walk. It is the best thing in the world 
for you. 


There are exercises that start the cir¬ 
culation and they are arm and leg exer¬ 
cises. There is one woman who goes 
into the gymnasium every day, even the 
coldest day in winter, and puts on a short 
sleeved gymnasium suit. She then takes 
her exercises. 

And the result is apparent. She is 
pretty, her complexion is clear and she 
never takes cold. 


RHEUMATISM AND PNEUMONIA. 


IS RHEUMATISM CONTAGIOUS? 

This question may appear bizarre, but 
at the same time there are cases in which 
it may well be asked. A German physi¬ 
cian is convinced to such a degree of the 
contagiousness of this disease that he has 
demanded and has obtained at Leipsic the 
creation of special isolation for rheu¬ 
matics, in order to prevent their spread¬ 
ing the disease. Leaving aside the num¬ 
erous cases where two or more persons 
have been afflicted with rheumatism at the 
same time in the same house, and where 
we may clearly be permitted to believe 
that the illness of all of the per¬ 
sons has had a common origin, we 
find some examples which may lead 
us to admit the possibility of con¬ 
tagion. We see, for example, child¬ 
ren attacked with articular rheumatism a 
few days after this disease has attacked 
the father. Again, we have a case men¬ 
tioned by M. Talamon, in which a child 
was attacked by articular rheumatism, 
which lasted eight days. A few days later 
the sister of the child, but younger, who 
slept in the same room, was attacked by 
a rheumatic affection which killed her. 
We may also see conjugal rheumatism, or 


rheumatism which passes from one to 
the other of two married people. For 
example, a man perfectly healthy is taken 
with rheumatism a few days after his 
wife suffers a rheumatic attack, the wife 
being a confirmed sufferer, and here it 
seems we have a well-defined case of con¬ 
tagion. 

PNEUMONIA. 

This treacherous and dangerous disease 
may occur in connection with bronchial 
and other affections of the air passages, 
induced by “taking cold.” An attack is 
usually sudden and generally commences 
with a chill, frequently accompanied by 
what are called rigors—shivering, chat¬ 
tering of the teeth, etc. In the majority 
of cases this occurs during the night and 
after exposure. The chill is severe and 
prolonged, lasting from half an hour to 
several hours. About the same time, or 
soon afterward, a pain is felt underneath 
the nipple on one—the affected—side. 
This pain is sharp and is described as 
“stabbing.” It is aggravated by cough- 1 
ing, sneezing and when the patient takes 
a “long breath.” Fever sets in early, and 
is one of the first symptoms. It usually 
runs verv high, as is indicated by the 




XEU'EST DISCOVERIES IX THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


355 




Fig. i. A well trained dog driving a young chick 
into a cup. 


Fig. 4. Obedience. 




Fig. 2. Careful work. 


Fig. 5. Incipent rebellion. 



Fig. 3. Hesitation 


Fig. 6. Accepting the situation, 



































BOOK OF THE TIMES 


356 


great heat of the skin. One peculiarity, 
seldom noticed in other affections where 
there is high fever, is often observed in 
this disease—the skin is moist from the 
outset. 

WHY BIG, HEALTHY PEOPLE DIE 

EASIEST WITH PNEUMONIA. 

An ingenious writer in Medical Talk 
gives an interesting explanation of why 
strong, healthy men and women are more 
liable to have typhoid fever, and when 
they do have it they are more liable to die 
as a consequence of it. 

As is well known, athletes are more 
liable to die of pneumonia than people 
who are not highly developed physically. 
The reason for this is that in the case of 
athletes the breathing capacity of the lungs 
has been greatly increased by athletic ex¬ 
ercises. Nearly the whole of the avail¬ 
able lung has been brought into constant 
daily use. All of the latent air cells have 
been developed, and when acute disease 
attacks the lungs it has greater area over 
which to spread, and the pneumonia is of 
a more virulent and active type. 

Another reason why athletes are not so 
liable to recover from pneumonia is that 
they have no latent lung to call into action 
after the disease begins. In the case of 
ordinary men and women at least one- 
third of the lung surface is in a latent 
or unused condition. When disease sets 
in it attacks only the active portion of the 
lungs. This leaves the person with a 
little reserve lung, which may be whipped 
into action after the disease has been de¬ 
veloped. 

Not only do the inflammatory proc¬ 
esses of pneumonia have less surface 
presented for their ravages, but there is 


latent lung which can come to the rescue 
of the patient in the later stages of the 
disease. 

Something very similar to this is true 
in the case of robust people having typhoid 
fever. It is a very curious fact, not gen¬ 
erally known, that the small intestine dif¬ 
fers in length in different people. Gray 
gives the average length of the small in¬ 
testine to be twenty feet, but anatomists 
who have given this subject special study 
have found the average in the adult male 
to be 2 2/2. feet and in the adult female 
23 1-3 feet. I11 an analysis of 100 cases 
the shortest small intestine observed was 
15^2 feet and the longest 31 feet 10 inches, 
a difference of over 15 feet. 

This surprising variability, when prop¬ 
erly considered, is a very significant fact. 
The small intestine is very important to 
digestion. It is here that the digested 
fluid of food is mainly absorbed by the 
blood vessels and lacteals. As the dis¬ 
solved fluid slowly moves along the tor¬ 
tuous canal, the nutritious portions are 
gradually absorbed by the hlood vessels 
of the mucous lining. It is very easy to 
see that the length of the tube has an im¬ 
portant bearing upon the absorption. 
Other things being equal, the longer the 
tube the more perfect the absorption will 
be. A tube thirty feet long, folded and 
twisted upon itself, would present more 
than double the obstruction to the passage 
of food than a tube fifteen feet long would 
and thus would become more than twice 
as valuable as a digestive organ. 

It is a fact that some men have double 
the length of a small intestine that other 
men have, and also a fact that women on 
the average have a greater length of small 
intestine than men, this would at least help 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


357 


to account for their differences in vitality, 
which every physician has noticed. As 
a rule, women will hear long strains and 
hunger better than men. Some men can 
go twice as long without food as others 
can. Some persons are hungry and faint 
if they miss a single meal, while others 
can go without food for twenty-four 
hours or longer with little or no incon¬ 
venience. The vitality in the length of 


the small intestine would certainly go a 
long way to account for these differences. 
The blood vessels and lacteals of the in¬ 
testines perform the same function for 
man that the roots do for plants. The 
roots absorb from the earth nutritive ma¬ 
terial. The tree is strong and of rapid 
growth in proportion to the numerousness 
of its root. 


LOSING MEMORY. 


Among nervous affections which are 
of not infrequent occurrence that known 
as aphasia, or the loss of the power of 
speech, is of great importance. More 
especially is this subject of importance be¬ 
cause loss of language is a condition as¬ 
sociated commonly with brain troubles 
other than those which are intimately con¬ 
cerned with aphasia itself. Let us begin 
our study of this interesting topic by call¬ 
ing to mind certain prominent facts con¬ 
nected with the brain itself. Our big 
brain exists in two halves or “lobes,” 
which are separate above but connected 
below by a kind of bridge. Each of these 
halves can exercise in its way a certain 
amount of independent action, but we 
may take it for granted that our full in¬ 
tellectual life is only rendered possible 
through the concerted action of both 
halves. 

TWO BRAINS. 

One very important point consists in 
the knowledge that each half of the brain 
controls movements of the opposite side 
of the body. If we are right-handed, this 
means that we are left-brained. A left- 
handed man, on the other hand, may be 
regarded as dominated by the right lobe 


of his brain. If we think or all the actions 
we are able to perform with our right 
hand, and unable to discharge with our 
left, we may see that the left side of the 
brain falls to be regarded as the more 
active of the two. All we know of the 
brain’s duties supports this view. The 
left half in ordinary people is the con¬ 
trolling lobe, the right playing second to 
it. We have also to take into account 
that the really active parts of our brain 
are the brain-cells. These are micro¬ 
scopic living things, the diameter of 
which does not in many cases exceed the 
one-five-thousandth part of an inch. 
There are many millions of such cells in 
the outer layer of the brain and in other 
parts as well. They are the real governors 
of our lives, and represent in this way 
the parliament of the body, certain of the 
cells dealing with the highest operations 
of our mind representing the cabinet of 
our frame. 

THE USE OF THE TWO BRAINS. 

Now, if each half of the body is gov¬ 
erned by the opposite lobe of the brain, 
it follows that disease of one side of the 
brain will be marked by its effects on the 





358 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


opposite side of the frame. If a man suf¬ 
fers from rupture of a small blood-vessel, 
or from the plugging of such a vessel, in 
the left brain, he will show paralysis, or 
loss of muscular power on his right side, 
and vice versa. This would be called a 
case of paralysis arising from apoplexy, 
an ailment showing such symptoms as 
have just been described. The effects of 
paralysis thus brought about naturally 
vary with the extent of the brain injury, 
and with the particular part of the brain 
affected. Sometimes both sides of the 
body are paralyzed by the apoplectic 
“stroke,” as it is popularly called. It is 
as a result of some such process that we 
find our faculty of speech to be affected, 
and this result in turn will depend upon 
the amount and situation of the derange¬ 
ment represented in the brain. 

LANGUAGE CENTER. 

Science has discovered that the lan- 
gauge centre, or sub-office, in the brain is 
situated in the left side at a point which 
may be roughly described as situated 
above, and in front of the ear. To he 
exact, the speech-centre lies in the third 
left fold of the brain on the forehead 
region in a part known as “Broca’s fold.” 
This is the collection of brain cells set 
apart for the exercise of language, that 
highly distinctive feature of man. When 
this part is diseased, aphasia is produced; 
but the curious fact remains that we have 
a duplicate speech-centre in the right side 
of the brain, only, in the vast majority of 
us it is not in use. Because the left brain 
has acquired the supremacy in other direc¬ 
tions, it has apparently gained a pre¬ 
eminence in the matter of the exercise of 
language. One very interesting point is 


found in the fact that when the left cen¬ 
tre has been thrown out of gear or de¬ 
stroyed, the right speech-centre may 
sometimes replace it in its work. Ordi¬ 
narily, however, the right one remains 
dormant. 

CONFUSION IN THE USE 
OF WORDS. 

We are now able to understand what 
“aphasia” means. Our speech centre 
being affected, we may either lose the 
memory of words, or may say words, hut. 
use the wrong ones, mistaking names, 
and saying “watch,” for example, when 
a “key” is shown us. Sometimes, too, 
the muscles of speech are disordered, and 
words cannot be formed. Also the power 
of writing words may be absent in 
aphasia, for it seems as if the expression 
of our thoughts in writing is so near akin 
to that whereby we express them in 
speech, that destruction of the speaking 
brain-cells usually affects those which 
control our writing as well. A person 
afflicted with this ailment, then, may 
either be unable to speak, or may say 
words which do not express his thoughts 
at all. Sometimes he can read, as if the 
reading cells were less affected than those 
controlling speech, but he does not re¬ 
member what he has read as a rule. More 
astonishing is it to find a person who has 
lost his own language may speak or read 
French, German, or other foreign tongue 
with which he is acquainted. We account 
for this result in the view that certain 
brain groups of cells perform different 
functions or duties, and that those con¬ 
cerned with the foreign language have 
been less affected than those dealing with 
the patient's native tongue. 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


359 


COMPLEXITY OF THE BRAIN. 

All these considerations show ns how 
very complex are the arrangements of 
the brain whereby our existence is gov¬ 
erned, and how a very slight upset may 
occasionally produce severe results in re¬ 
spect of the disturbance both of mental 
and physical actions. In the case of 
aphasia there is usually a history of an 
apoplectic seizure, or at least of some 
brain trouble of a more or less defined 
character. Slight cases get well, severe 
ones are naturally of less hopeful charac¬ 
ter. The treatment resolves itself into 
the extreme care of the patient. Abso¬ 
lute rest is necessary—freedom from all 
bodily and mental worry. The general 
health will require accurate and constant 


supervision, because recovery will be 
aided and promoted by every measure cal¬ 
culated to strengthen the body at large. 
Especially must digestion and the state of 
the bowels be attended to. The physician, 
if he suspects any special origin of the 
brain trouble, will treat that by the ad¬ 
ministration of appropriate drugs. A 
good deal can be done in the way of 
teaching the patient to speak, thus slowly 
repairing the old memory for words, or 
forming a new one. It can readily be 
understood that in an ailment of this kind 
direct treatment is an impossibility. All 
we can do is to favor the return of the 
missing function, by strict attention to 
the health. 


PALPITATION OF THE HEART. 


A considerable deal of alarm is often 
needlessly experienced by people who 
suffer from palpitation. By this term is 
meant irregular and often excessive action 
of the heart. We perpetually hear peo¬ 
ple speaking of their suffering from “a 
weak heart,” as they term it, when they 
ought rather to talk of irregular action 
of the central organ of the circulation. 
They will worry over fancied heart af¬ 
fections when in reality they suffer simply 
from a little upset in the heart’s work¬ 
ing. As a rule the causes of such irregu¬ 
larities are not difficult of discovery. We 
shall presently note they may owe their 
origin to infractions of health laws and 
conditions such as are easily remedied by 
the exercise of a little common sense. 

A MARVELOUS MUSCLE. 

The heart is a hollow muscle. Being 
a muscle, its substance consists of the 
same substance as the “flesh” of the body, 


which is the source of our movements. 
It is, therefore, by aid of the same kind 
of force, or energy, that moves our legs 
and arms that blood is driven through the 
body. Now, like every other muscle, the 
heart demands certain conditions for its 
healthy working. It requires a due supply 
of good blood to nourish it; it resents 
being overworked, and, like other muscles, 
it grows tired; while when it is subjected 
to strain it rebels. Note next a very im¬ 
portant distinction between two types or 
kinds of ailment—a distinction I have had 
occasion before to point out in this 
column. The first type of disorder is 
what we call a “functional” ailment, the 
second class receiving the name of 
“organic” troubles. 

IRREGULAR MOVEMENTS. 

Vastly important in the case of the 
heart is it to bear in mind the wide dif¬ 
ference between the two. A functional 





360 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ailment means simply a derangement in 
the working of an organ. There is no 
change in its structure. The machinery 
is perfect, only it is acting irregularly. It 
is the case of the watch which is going 
too fast or too slow. A touch on the 
regulator puts matters right. If, how¬ 
ever, a screw is loose, or a wheel off the 
balance, the case is different. There is 
an accident to the machine and its struc¬ 
ture here represented, and perfect action 
cannot be expected until that accident has 
been repaired. In the same way a heart 
which is beating irregularly from a simple 
cause is not diseased in the true sense of 
the term, any more than a stomach which 
has been irritated by unsuitable food is 
necessarily altered in its structure. But 
a heart whose valves are thickened or de¬ 
fective represents a case of organic ail¬ 
ment, just as a stomach which is ulcer¬ 
ated fails to be included in the category 
of like troubles. 

SERIOUS SIGNS. 

The vast majority of ordinary heart- 
disturbances are of the “functional” kind. 
It is true that cases of serious heart 
troubles exist, and demand the best medi¬ 
cal aid and care that can be obtained. 
These are marked by signs and symptoms 
nobody can mistake by reason of the dis¬ 
comfort they cause, and by reason also of 
their continuance. But when people 
ordinarily speak of their hearts being af¬ 
fected, they simply indicate irregular 
heart action, and often needlessly alarm 
themselves and their friends. Coming 
to practical details, let us note first of all 
that palpitation can only be regarded as a 
serious sign when it is constantly present. 
If a person is rarely free from irregular 


action of the heart, his only wise course is 
to see a physician, for medicine has many 
aids even for damaged hearts. If the at¬ 
tacks are only experienced at intervals, 
that is a different matter. Such occa¬ 
sional attacks are common, for example, 
in anaemic or “bloodless” people, who be¬ 
come short-winded on the least exertion, a 
result due to the poor quality of the blood. 
Stout people may suffer also from this 
ailment, but in their case there may be 
actual weakening of the heart from its de¬ 
veloping a fatty condition. 

CAUSES OF PALPITATION. 

More common causes of ordinary pal¬ 
pitation are not difficult to discover. 
Prominent among them is abuse and ex¬ 
cess of tobacco. Men who smoke the 
stronger kinds of tobacco frequently com¬ 
plain of heart-pain and the like. Very 
bad attacks are brought on by over-indul¬ 
gence in cigarettes. Young people seem 
especially to be liable to suffer in this 
way. The drunkard is another victim of 
palpitation, owing to his particular vice. 
When he complains of “that sinking feel¬ 
ing” which follows on his debauch, he is 
illustrating the depressing influence of al¬ 
cohol on his heart. Then he resorts to 
“a hair of the dog that bit him,” and 
whips up his already tired heart into 
activity by a morning dram, thus accen¬ 
tuating and increasing the evil. Women 
who over-indulge in tea are equal suf¬ 
ferers, especially if they are otherwise 
poorly fed. Coffee has a curious effect 
in inducing palpitation in certain indi¬ 
viduals, and this fact should therefore be 
kept in mind by sufferers. Often palpi¬ 
tation will appear if exercise is taken too 
soon after a meal, and I warn sufferers 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


301 


against heavy and late suppers. A loaded 
stomach exerts a very distinct influence 
on the heart, and palpitation at night is 
frequently to be traced to a late meal, 
especially if it be of indigestible nature. 

Suppose, therefore, that a person com¬ 
plains of palpitation occasionally, there 
should be an inquiry into the habits with 
reference to the points. Alteration of the 
erroneous way of living will usually suf¬ 
fice to cure the condition. Also suppose 
that the palpitation is confined to the 


heart, that is to say that there is, for ex¬ 
ample, no pain or discomfort felt in the 
back or in the right side, then we may 
feel fairly sure the case is trivial in its 
nature. In serious heart trouble we 
should find dropsy and swelling of the 
feet and legs, and blueness of the lips, 
with constant breathlessness on the least 
exertion. These last are signs which 
should never be neglected, and the physi¬ 
cian’s aid should be sought. 


DIZZINESS, OR GIDDINESS. 

' i 


In the first place we must note that all 
degrees of giddiness may he found repre¬ 
sented when a series of cases is examined, 
and it is an important point to note the 
extent of the seizure. Nobody minds a 
passing symptom of this kind, due as 
often as not to stomach disturbance, or a 
trifling upset of the liver, but if attacks 
become frequent and increase, not only 
in number but in severity, we may then 
reasonably suppose that some condition 
more serious than stomach irritation has 
induced the symptom. The simplest 
cases, then, arise from digestive disorders. 
In them we find a history of, say, dyspep¬ 
sia. There is some degree of pain or dis¬ 
comfort after eating, for example, and 
as a rule constipation is present. I believe 
the explanation of a good many cases of 
giddiness is really to be found in the fact 
that matters not duly excreted from the 
system are absorbed into the blood, and 
act as poisons upon us, one symptom be¬ 
ing the familiar “swimming" in the head. 

LIVER TROUBLES. 

There is another point worth remem¬ 
bering in this connection. If the dis¬ 


turbance is due to liver-trouble, a very 
common cause and origin, we meet with 
floating specks before the eyes, and we 
shall in such a case find headache present 
as well. Here there exists bilious de¬ 
rangement, which may or may not end in 
a smart bilious attack, where the giddi¬ 
ness is succeeded by vomiting of bile and 
by the other disagreeable symptoms many 
of us know only too well. Now in all 
such cases, it is a safe rule to give a 
small dose of calomel, three grains will 
suffice, and follow this by a saline ape¬ 
rient. The blue pill at night and black 
draught in the morning of the old doc¬ 
tors was and is an excellent remedy. 
There must be care in respect of what is 
eaten. Excess of meat is to be avoided, 
and the diet, indeed, should, for a day or 
two, exclude all flesh foods (save, per¬ 
haps, a little white boiled fish), and 
should consist of milk puddings and fari r 
naceous foods in greater part. 

REMEDIES. 

Alcohol had better be avoided alto¬ 
gether, for it is a too common cause of 
giddiness arising from a disordered liver. 



362 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The giddiness of the alcoholic subject is 
easily explained, because his brain is be¬ 
ing poisoned by potations, and his nerv¬ 
ous system at large is in an unstable con¬ 
dition. But alcohol will frequently pro¬ 
duce such effects in perfectly temperate 
people, so it is well to bear the fact clearly 
in mind. If any further medicine is 
needed in such simple cases, a dessert¬ 
spoonful thrice daily in water (between 
meals) of the following mixture should 
be tried: Dilute nitro-muriatic acid two 
drachms; compound tincture of gentian, 
three and a half drachms; liquid extract 
of dandelion up to four ounces. 

SEA-SICKNESS. 

Giddiness may, however, have other 
origins than those represented by diges¬ 
tive disorders. Naturally, as the nerv¬ 
ous system is that whereby we are kept 
in equilibrium, as it were, it is obvious 
that all cases of “swimming” in the head 
must be referred to the brain directly. It 
is the different causes which affect the 
brain that constitute the real puzzle of 
giddiness. - A familiar example of such 
brain-disturbance is seen in the case of 
sea-sickness. Here, for one reason or an¬ 
other, the brain is acted upon by the 
motion of the vessel, and by our attempts 
to keep in touch, so to speak, with what 
we know to be the level condition of 
things. There is a very curious disease, 
of which giddiness is a prominent symp¬ 
tom, and which lends support to the view 
that sea-sickness is largely a brain-trouble. 
This ailment is known as Meniere’s 
disease. 

SPECIAL CASES. 

The patient here suffers from constant 
giddiness, and not merely from a passing 


seizure. In addition the walk is of stag¬ 
gering kind, and there is shown a tend¬ 
ency to lean or fall to one side. Noises 
are complained of in the ears, with deaf¬ 
ness, and vomiting occurs, being, as in 
brain cases, of an easy character, and not 
accompanied by the retching familiar 
where the stomach is the seat of the 
trouble. Now it was discovered by a dis¬ 
tinguished French physiologist that a 
certain part of the internal ear, known as 
“the semi-circular canals,” is concerned 
with our power of preserving our equi¬ 
librium. We are able to walk straight, 
in other words, largely through the oper¬ 
ation of these canals, aided, no doubt, by 
brain action. Disease of the canals is 
therefore marked by a kind of physical 
upset, while, no doubt, giddiness may also 
be induced by undue pressure in other 
parts of the organ of hearing. Where, 
therefore, giddiness and the other symp¬ 
toms described become more or less 
permanent, a physician should be con¬ 
sulted at once. Large doses of bromide 
of potash will probably be given; while 
salicylate of soda has also been employed 
in the treatment of the ailment. 

NERVOUS AILMENTS. 

With reference to other sources of “gid- 
diness,” it may be well to point out that 
brain conditions themselves, apart from 
ear troubles, may be responsible for this 
symptom. The only practical fashion of 
dealing with such an ailment is first to 
discover the exact cause by seeing if we 
can exclude from the list of possible 
origins the liver or stomach troubles to 
which allusion has already been made. 
Many nervous ailments are marked by 
giddiness, and when they are of simple 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 363 


character they may be relieved by change 
of air to a mild resort, and by giving 
twenty grains of bromide of potash in 
water twice daily between meals—one of 
the doses might with advantage be given 
at night. Finally, elderly persons, subject 
to flushings of the face—and especially 
stoutly-built people—should be extremely 
careful of their health if giddiness troubles 


them. They should attend to the regular 
action of the bowels, and avoid stimulants 
and rich foods. They should live quietly 
and avoid excitement, and in this way they 
may prevent what may occur in such sub¬ 
jects—namely, a stroke of apoplexy, such 
as was alluded to in our last article in con¬ 
nection with loss of speech. 


HEADACHE. 


SYMPTOMS. 

For a day or two preceding an attack 
there may be vague feelings of poorliness, 
such as languor, fatigue, stomach pains, 
and even an unusually hearty appetite. 
After it has passed, the patient may re¬ 
main perfectly well for several weeks or 
months, but, not unfrequently lengthened 
intervals of freedom are followed by in¬ 
creasingly severe attacks. 

ONSET. 

Pain may be felt for the first time on 
awakening, or if it begin in the daytime 
it is immediately preceded by chilliness, 
yawning, sneezing, and sight disturb¬ 
ances. Floating before the eyes are cob¬ 
webby filaments, balls of fire, or brilliantly 
colored zig-zags (the Rembrandtesque 
fortifications), whilst the sight itself is 
dimmed. This dimness is usually partial 
and in each eye, and often involves the 
central portion of objects looked at; some¬ 
times only the half of objects can be seen, 
and then we have one of the most inter¬ 
esting forms of partial loss of sight, to 
which the name hemianopsia is given. 
Owing to this, we may only see the upper, 
the lower, the outer, or the inner half of 
what we look at, and on the particular 
variation depends the more elaborate 


analysis of the process that is in opera¬ 
tion. 

THE PAIN. 

This usually begins on the left half of 
the forehead, but may occur at the back or 
the side of the head. At first it is but a 
dull ache, but quickly it assumes a boring 
or throbbing character, of a most intoler¬ 
able kind. It may spread over the whole 
head, and in typical cases there is a ten¬ 
der spot on the upper eyebrow, near to 
the bridge of the nose. 

THE SICKNESS. 

Appetite is lost, and digestion inter¬ 
fered with. At its height the mouth fills 
with saliva, and vomiting occurs. This 
increases the pain, and, finally, after a 
variable interval, the patient falls asleep, 
or becomes drowsy and the attack ends. 

SENSATION. 

Ordinary sensation is much disturbed. 
Some parts are cold, others hot; the scalp 
is exquisitely tender, one-half of the 
tongue and one side of the body may be 
numb, whilst the hands may be unable to 
hold things because of the numbness. 

UNUSUAL FORMS. 

The onset, development and duration 
of the paroxysms may vary greatly, so 



364 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that great care is necessary in order to 
discriminate between what are varieties of 
sick-headache and many other diseases in 
which the symptoms of sick-headache are 
present. 

GOUT v. MIGRAINE. 

Bearing in mind the family relationship 
between these two, it can readily be under¬ 
stood that genuine gout in an individual 
who has been a frequent sufferer from 
migraine, may now and then be mistaken 
for the latter when the migrainous symp¬ 
toms are alone conspicuous; we have, 
then, what the older physicians called 
“masked gout/’ that is, gout wearing the 
mask of another disease. 

“MASKED” DISEASES. 

Similarly, neuralgia of the fifth nerve 
may cause error, but this is not so serious 
as when the head pain and vomiting due 
to disease of the brain, such as a slowly 
developing apoplexy, are supposed to be 
caused by tbe migraine from which the 
patient may have frequently suffered. 
Fortunately this mistake is quickly per¬ 
ceived. 

TREATMENT OF MIGRAINE. 

Theories of the treatment of migraine 
are as diverse as are the explanations 
given of its causes. Plainly enough, how¬ 
ever, they must all resolve themselves into 
measures taken to prevent its occurrence, 
and those required during an attack. 

CURATIVE. 

Sometimes the attack is ushered in with 
extreme pallor, which is followed by signs 
of congestion; at other times tins process 
is reversed. In tbe former case, nitro¬ 
glycerine, in tabloids containing each one- 
hundredth of a grain, or nitrate of amyl 
inhalations have been used with conspicu¬ 


ous success. The latter can only be safely 
administered by a doctor, but those who 
have once used the former, may prudently 
do so again on their own responsibility. 
On tbe same principles tbe inhalation of 
nitrous oxide gas might be expected to 
cut short the attack that commences with 
signs of congestion. If we are committed 
to one particular line of treatment, es¬ 
pecially when the patient is a woman, 
probably the following is the most gen¬ 
erally serviceable. Five grains each of 
antipyrin and bromide of ammonium, 
with thirty drops of the liquid extract of 
ergot, in an ounce of camphor water. This 
may be taken every four hours. Where 
sleep is urgently needed, the following is 
safe: Butylchloral hydrate, two and one- 
half grains; glycerine and rectified spirits, 
twenty drops of each in an ounce of water 
may be taken every hour for six or eight 
doses. A recent suggestion is citrophen 
in fifteen grain doses every four hours till 
three doses have been taken, and it has 
been recommended that aspirin or salicy¬ 
late of soda should be added to this. 

FOR THE SICKNESS. 

Tbe cold pack to tbe stomach is often 
very beneficial, and when no food can be 
taken, drop doses of Fowler’s solution of 
arsenic, taken in a teaspoonful of milk, 
every four hours, tends to allay the nausea 
and to bring back the appetite. 

GENERAL MEASURES. 

In addition, the intolerance of light de¬ 
mands darkening of the room, and the ex¬ 
treme nervous irritability calls for quie¬ 
tude. Mustard may be applied to the 
nape of the neck, and hot water bottles to 
tbe feet, whilst, in some cases, the pres- 






Devil’s Slide in Weber’s Canyon, said by geologists to be one of the oldest portions of the 

western hemisphere. 































3GG 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


sure of an elastic band round the forehead 
is very comforting. 

PREVENTION. 

Exercise in the open air is of great im¬ 
portance, for vitiated air favors the on¬ 
set of the disease. More than all, we 
must seek to arrive at a clear comprehen¬ 
sion of the causes that predispose to its 
occurrence. Overwork, anxiety, insom¬ 
nia; abnormal conditions of sight, and 
diseased states of the mouth and nose, to¬ 
gether with the various conditions that 
lead to alteration in the cpiality of the 
blood, such as arise in gout, kidney dis¬ 
ease, alcoholism, indigestion and such 
like, must all receive attention, and, where 
possible, should be removed or. at least, 
mitigated. 

MIGRAINE, EPILEPSY, AND 
ASTHMA. 

There is sometimes found a remarkably 
close relationship between migraine and 
epilepsy. One member of a family may 
suffer from epilepsy, another from mi¬ 
graine, or an attack of the latter may pre¬ 
cede an attack of the former in the same 
individual. In some families, examples 
of all three are to be found, whilst, in 
others, the males may suffer from neu¬ 
ralgias, like sciatica, and the women, 
from neuroses such as we have men¬ 
tioned. 

THE “SISTER OF GOUT.” 

“Gout and megrim are sisters,” was a 
favorite expression of Trousseau, the dis¬ 
tinguished French physician, and, cer¬ 
tainly, if family resemblances and nat¬ 
ural history count for anything, he had 
good reason for the aphorism. 


BLOOD POISONS. 

Gout is a blood poison, but there are 
other forms of poison which we manufac¬ 
ture for ourselves, and yet others which 
we can procure from without. Of the 
former, we need only refer to that con¬ 
dition of imperfectly purified blood, which 
occurs in the course of Bright's Disease: 
of the latter, the inhalation of impure air 
and the ingestion of foods and drinks that 
are unsuitable. More, perhaps, than any 
of these, should be noticed those changes 
in the general condition of the body which 
are more conspicuously seen amongst 
women than amongst men. 

SEX, INHERITANCE. 

This latter, in some measure, explains 
the greater frequency of migraine 
amongst women, and has led to the state¬ 
ment, that, when it does not occur before 
twenty-five years of age, it is not likely 
to appear afterwards, and that it frequent¬ 
ly disappears altogether after fifty. This 
must not be too rigidly accepted, any 
more than the other idea, that when it 
disappears about mid-age its place is taken 
by genuine attacks of gout. All that can 
be safely said is that these phenomena of 
disappearance, onset, and substitution 
are often observed. It has been suggested 
that migraine is mainly a disease of 
women, because they are more liable to 
neuroses (or functional nerve disturb¬ 
ances), whilst men are more apt to suffer 
from neurites (or actual inflammation of 
nerves). Thus the woman has her mi¬ 
graine whilst the man is maddened by his 
sciatica. 

Inheritance plays a great part in its 
production, and it has been said that the 
sufferer is more indebted to her mother 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


367 


than to her father for her undesirable pre¬ 
disposition to migraine. Be that as it 
may, migraine is inherited, and women 
chiefly inherit it. 

EXHAUSTION. 

The occurrence of migraine is often de¬ 
cided by conditions dependent on exhaus¬ 
tion of the body, brain, or mind, and in 
this way we account for its occurrence 
after prolonged loss of sleep, mental 
anxiety, indigestion, and purely physical 
fatigue. 

REFLEX CAUSES. 

When there has been disease of organs 
distant from the brain, headaches are of 
frequent occurrence, but we are unable to 
explain why in one case an ordinary, and 
in another, a sick-headache may be thus 
produced. 

EPITOME OF ITS CAUSES. 

These may be thus stated.—Psychical, 
as insomnia and anxiety; visual, especially 
where the sight is abnormal, as in astig- 

Let even a slight wound occur whereby 
the continuity of the skin’s surface is 
broken, and we find the opportunity given 
for microbes to enter into the citadel of 
life. It is here as if a small breach was 
made in the fortification, such as might 
admit in time a whole attacking army. 
Something of this kind actually occurs in 
a certain class of wounds, as we shall see. 
To illustrate this all important point more 
clearly, let me take the case of the germ 
of that terrible disease known as lockjaw 
or tetanus. These germs live everywhere 
in the earth. There is not a sample of 
earden soil anywdiere which would not 
yield them. Now if these microbes were 


matism; irritation of nerve endings, 
caused by adenoids, enlarged tonsils, nose 
diseases, and decayed teeth; toxic, or poi¬ 
sonous, as in constipation (and sometimes 
from the means used to cure that condi¬ 
tion), kidney diseases, and those others 
already mentioned. 

THE FIFTH NERVE. 

This nerve sends branches to the cover¬ 
ings of the brain, and all ordinary sensa¬ 
tion in the brain is conveyed by it; it 
originates within the brain itself, and the 
site of the development of migraine is by 
some supposed to be at the nucleus of this 
nerve. 

THE ASSOCIATED SICKNESS. 

The best explanation we have of this, 
is the theory of Eulenberg, that it arises 
from variations in the blood pressure 
within the skull itself, because of the dis¬ 
turbance of the functions of the Sympa¬ 
thetic System of Nerves of the corre¬ 
sponding side of the body. 

applied to the healthy unbroken skin they 
could do us no harm. If they could, cases 
of lockjaw would be very numerous in¬ 
deed. But let them gain entrance to the 
body through a scratch ever so trifling 
and we run a very certain risk of being at¬ 
tacked by lockjaw. 

INFECTION BY MICROBES. 

Of other microbes which cause illness, 
especially in connection with wounds, the 
same remarks hold good. We are safe 
enough if the skin-surface is intact. 
When, however, wounding occurs, it is 
through infection of our bodies by mi¬ 
crobes gaining an entrance by the skin 


WOUNDS. 




368 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


that we get serious consequences, often 
arising from what may he in themselves 
trifling injuries. A simple wound, prop¬ 
erly treated, heals readily enough. Its 
edges, brought together, unite without 
undue inflammation. They heal by a 
process called by surgeons “first inten¬ 
tion.” This is the natural process of re¬ 
pair, and it occurs where a wound is kept 
clean. Suppose, however, some matter or 
other—“dirt,” to use the general term— 
gains admission to a wound, then we find 
microbes present as elements in the un¬ 
desirable material. What happens in this 
case is clear enough. In place of healing 
steadily and easily, the wound gets 
“angry”; suppuration, or the formation 
of “matter” (or pus) occurs; healing is 
delayed, and the wound only heals by a 
long and tedious process. If it is a more 
serious case of “dirt” infection, blood- 
poisoning may result. 

The practical lesson, then, is that where 
a wound exists our first duty, after the ar¬ 
rest of any bleeding, is to see that it is 
properly cleansed. If it is a poisoned 
wound the bleeding will remove the poi¬ 
son ; but we should also suck the wound 
to remove from it as much of the deleteri¬ 
ous matter as possible. I f the mouth has 
no abrasions in it the poison will do us no 
harm, while the mouth can be washed out 
afterwards with a solution made by dis¬ 
solving a few crystals of permanganate 
of potash in a tumblerful of tepid water. 
A ligature or strap may be tied between 

STOMACH 

HEARTBURN, COLIC, NAUSEA. 

AND OTHER AILMENTS. 

Among the common trials of the stom¬ 
ach we have first of all to reckon with cer- 


the wound and the rest of the body to pre¬ 
vent the spread of the poison; then the 
doctor will do what more is required in 
the way of cauterizing the wound or of 
similarly treating it. 

CLEANSING THE WOUND. 

The ordinary wound has to be carefully 
treated, so as to cleanse it from all ex¬ 
traneous matter after stoppage of bleed¬ 
ing. The best fashion of effecting this 
end is to boil water, so as to sterilize it, 
and then use it tepid to thoroughly flush 
the wound. To the water may be added 
a little permanganate of potash, so as to 
color it of a light claret tint. In many 
cases a little carbolic acid (in the propor¬ 
tion of one to twenty of water strength) 
may be used as a lotion of disinfecting 
character after the flushing has been ef¬ 
fected. Boracic acid is also another 
favorite application — about eighteen 
grains to the ounce of water makes a 
good lotion. The most powerful disin¬ 
fectant is perchloride of mercury. One 
tabloid dissolved in a pint of water makes 
one of the best applications to wounds by 
way of disinfecting them. This last solu¬ 
tion, however, is poisonous if swallowed, 
and must, therefore, be carefully kept 
away from any chance of being taken by 
mistake. For dressing the wound carbolic 
oil is one of the simplest applications, 
used on lint, and afterwards iodoform 
gauze may be applied over all as an addi¬ 
tional protection against germ infection. 

TROUBLES. 

tain conditions which, while not in them¬ 
selves of dangerous character, neverthe¬ 
less represent troublesome enough disor¬ 
ders. That is such states as are indicated 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


309 


by the terms acidity, flatulence, stomach- 
pain, water brash, and the like. Now it 
is quite true that all these symptoms may 
be present in “indigestion/’ and may, in¬ 
deed, characterize that ailment in a very 
marked degree, so that we come to look 
upon them as the distinctive features of 
the trouble in question. But, on the other 
hand, we may find one or more of them 
represented in serious stomach disease; 
and so it becomes necessary for us to 
note the possibility of comparing the 
symptoms when they indicate merely a 
passing disturbance of health with other 
conditions which demand prompt medical 
care and advice. 

PAIN IN THE STOMACH. 

Take as an illustration the symptom 
of pain. Referred to the stomach pain 
may indicate in one phase the presence 
of colic or difficult digestion, eased by 
simple remedies. In another aspect pain 
may be a warning to us that something 
is organically wrong, and that our instant 
attention is needed by way of averting 
serious consequences. What we have to 
bethink ourselves of here are the charac¬ 
ter of the pain, its frequency, when it 
comes on with reference to the taking of 
food, and its association with sickness, 
which may relieve it or not. We may 
select as a telling example of the value 
of recognizing pain in the stomach and 
its nature the case of what is known as 
“ulcer of the stomach,” or gastric ulcer, 
as physicians term it. In an acute case 
we find the pain to come on with regu¬ 
larity about a quarter of an hour or so 
after food has been taken. It is a sharp, 
lancinating pain, increasing in severity 
in each attack, and becoming worse when 


pressure is made over a special part or 
region of the stomach. The pain is 
caused by the movements of the stomach, 
which, of course, begin when food enters 
the organ. The ulcer or sore in the 
lining membrane of the stomach repre¬ 
sents a result of inflammation, and it can 
be understood that the movements, unfelt 
in a healthy person, will give rise to 
much suffering when they take place in 
and affect a damaged portion or area. 

ULCEROUS CONDITIONS. 

Note next here the effect of vomiting. 
When the stomach is emptied the pain 
ceases. The movements of the organ 
cease, the ulcerated part is no longer 
stretched and disturbed, and relief is ob¬ 
tained. In the vomited matters blood 
may appear. If this latter symptom is a 
marked one the case must be regarded as 
highly serious. Summing up this first 
statement regarding stomach pain, it is 
clear that if any person suffers from 
severe continued pain just after food, re¬ 
lieved by vomiting, and with the symptom 
present of blood in the rejected matters, 
we are most likely face to face not with 
simple indigestion, but with a very 
serious condition, for the cure of which 
the doctor’s services are necessary. We 
may add that ulcer of the stomach is very 
typical in women, and in anaemic and 
poorly fed subjects. 

NAUSEA. 

Turn now to pain of a different kind. 
The case of an otherwise healthy person, 
who, having eaten something indigestible, 
is troubled some time after a meal with 
sharp pain, is easily made out as a rule to 
be due to indigestion pure and simple. 
His pain is of the colicky description; it 



.">70 


book or rim timus 


i idieved by pressure, and il disappears 
when I lie stomach is emptied by vomiting' 
being induced. This last, indeed, is often 
the surest and quickest fashion of getting 
relief when indigestion of temporary 
nature is present. Mothers should hear 
this fact in mind in the case of children 
who have been partaking of improper 
food, A dose of ipecacuanha wine 
or powder, inducing vomiting, cuts 
short the whole array of symptoms and 
dears the stomach of the food, which 
otherwise will give trouble so long as 
digestion makes its endeavor to over¬ 
come the difficulty. Where “flatulence” 
is present we again meet with pain, which 
comes and goes, and which may affect not 
the stomach alone, but also the bowel 
itself when this latter portion of the 
digestive system comes into play. I I ere 
also the pain is not continuous, but is of 
sharp, intermittent kind. Occasionally 
diarrluea may be represented, or more 
frequently there is constipation. 

REMEDIES. 

Both conditions demand attention, of 
course, but for the cure of such symp¬ 
toms, and especially if the pain returns at 
intervals, nothing is belter than the plac¬ 
ing on the tongue of twenty grains of 
carbonate of bismuth an hour belt re food 
(i. e., when the stomach is empty) and 
swallowing the |>owder with a draught 
of water. This may he repeated twice or 
thrice daily if needed with good effect. 
Sometimes a draught consisting of light 
magnesia, half a drachm; bicarlxmale of 
soda, twenty grains; half a drachm of 
tincture of orange peel, and one ounce of 
peppermint water will give great relief. 

11 should be taken half an hour before 
meals, or if taken, say, between meals, 


il may relieve the flatulence and pain 
coming on later in the digestive work. 

HEARTBURN. 

“.Heartburn,” which, as everyone 
knows, is an annoying condition con¬ 
nected with indigestion, and charac¬ 
terized, as its name indicates, by a burn¬ 
ing feeling in the stomach, may be 
regarded as essentially due most fre¬ 
quently It) some over-acid state of the 
gastric juice. Mere there is usually to 
he found some error in diet which has 
upset the digestive functions. Salt meats, 
for example, will readily produce “heart¬ 
burn” in many persons. Sugar and 
pastry will give rise to it in others. Chem¬ 
ists tell us that such fats give rise to cer¬ 
tain acids which, undergoing changes in 
the stomach, irritate it exceedingly. 'This 
hint may he of service to those of my 
readers who are fond of baked dishes. 

I hey should try other modes of cooking 
meats. Tea and coffee also are apt to 
produce acidity if taken after or with 
meats. “I ligh teas” are to he condemned 
for the reason that tea and coffee retard 
and slow digestion and give rise to acid 
products. 

ACIDITY. 

I lie worst feature of acidity is that 
people, in place of discovering the real 
cause of their ailment, to be found in the 
food for the most part, will insist on swal¬ 
lowing day after day large quantities of 
bicarlx male of soda, by way of correcting 
the acid condition. This gives temporary 
relief, but of course the acidity returns 
with the next meal, and the practice of 
taking soda in unlimited quantities, and 
very frequently, is one not unattended by 
danger, (have stomach and bowel trou¬ 
bles are often set up through this practice, 


NEtVEST DISCOVERIES IX T1IR SECRETS OF HEALTH 


and it is the opinion of some physicians 
that in women who are liable otherwise 
to the development of gastric nicer, soda 
thus used favors the onset of that disease. 

Digestion begins in the mouth. There 
the saliva or “water” of the mouth 
changes the starches we cat (in the shape 
of bread, potatoes, rice, etc.) into a sugar. 
We see that if this action is not perfectly 
performed, and the food thoroughly 
chewed and mixed with the saliva, the 
stomach will receive unchanged starch 
over which it has no power of digestion. 
True it is that the stomach does not deal 
with sugar either, but nature at least 
teaches us that starch should descend as 
sugar to the organ and not as starch pure 
and simple. Many a case of indigestion 
arises from defective teeth preventing the 
due mastication of food. The stomach 
can only act properly on food presented 
to it in a finely divided form. We in¬ 
crease its labor and delay its work when 
we “bolt’’ our food, so that in this first 
piece of information we may receive a 
valuable hint regarding one cause of di¬ 
gestive trouble, and a clear mode of pre¬ 
venting it. 

DIGESTIVE WORK OF THE 
STOMACH. 

The only foods over which the stomach 
exercises digestive power are those which 
we term “nitrogenous” substances. They 
are the foods which go to build up our 
tissues, and constitute the foundation of 
the blood itself, of muscle, brain, and all 
other living parts. These foods are rep¬ 
resented by white of egg, by the albumen 
or juice of meat, by casein or the turd of 
milk, by the gluten of flour and by like 
substances. They are the special objects 
of the stomach’s work. It pours out its 


371 


gastric juice on them and converts them 
into a form in which they are quickly ab¬ 
sorbed into the 1)11)0(1 and placed at the 
disposal of the body. The stomach is a 
half-way house on the digestive journey. 
The food is detained in it till such time 
as all the nitrogenous elements have been 
changed and absorbed. What is left un¬ 
altered and unchanged by the stomach’s 
work are fats and sugars, and any 
starches which have not been changed into 
sugar in the mouth. These wait digestion 
further on in the bowel. 

WATER AND MINERAL SUB¬ 
STANCES. 

We now see what is meant by saying 
that the stomach does not perform a large 
share of the digestive duty ; for the great 
bulk of our daily food consists not of 
nitrogenous things, but of starch, sugar, 
and fat. We are taking no account here 
of water, of which we consume much (in 
one shape or another) every day, or of 
the minerals (such as common salt, pot¬ 
ash, and the like) of which last we require 
about an ounce per day. When the stom¬ 
ach itself is at fault, the ailments from 
which we suffer may be due to a variety 
of causes. There may, first of all, he 
some actual disease of the organ itself. 
Thus we get ulceration of the stomach, or 
dilatation—that is, great enlargement—or 
even cancer. In the second place, we may 
find the stomach’s working to he thrown 
out of gear without any actual changes in 
its structure. Painful digestion, or weak 
digestion, may arise from a want of tone 
in the organ, or from deficiency in either 
the quality or quantity of the gastric juice 
which the stomach pours on the food, by 
way of digesting the nitrogenous foods. 





372 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SPECIAL REMEDIES. 

Then we find a whole array of symp¬ 
toms of such disorders in the shape of 
flatulence, acidity, and water-brash—this 
last consisting in the bringing up into the 
mouth of quantities of a watery, tasteless 
fluid. The practical advice, which may be 
borne in mind as applicable to ordinary 
stomach derangement, is that of first 
ascertaining the nature of the special ail¬ 
ment represented. Meanwhile, two or 
three hints may be given from the general 
point of view taken in this paper. Where 
indigestion is present, let the food be 
rigidly supervised. All indigestible mat¬ 
ters should be avoided—salt meats, 
cheese, pickles, pastry, and the like—and 
it will be well, if the stomach be given a 
rest. Try abstinence from all food, save, 
perhaps, a little milk and bread, for 
twenty-four hours, and note the result. 
This “starvation" process often cures 
simple cases of irritable stomach, and it 
may be supplemented by the sipping of a 
tumblerful of hot (not tepid) water night 
and morning. Then, when returning to 
ordinary diet, begin cautiously, taking 
only light things at first in the shape of 
white (boiled) fish, tripe, milk puddings, 
and the like, and eating stale bread in 
place of potatoes. Many of us never 
recognize that the stomach, like the heart, 
greatly benefits from rest. The heart- 
trouble is cured by rest in bed, that of 
the stomach by abstention from ordinary, 
and especially from solid, food for a time. 

REDUCING ONE’S WEIGHT. 

There is an idea that if the stout per¬ 
son can suffer himself to live on dry 
foods, taking from six to twelve ounces 
of fluid only at each meal (and no fluid 


between)—that is about three-quarters of 
a pint—if he avoids all soups and fluid 
foods and abstains from fat, starch, and 
sugar (leaving his diet to be thus largely 
one of meat), he will reduce weight 
quickly. The French doctor who recom¬ 
mended this plan also advocated plenty of 
exercise and the taking of a purgative fre¬ 
quently. This mode of treatment is far 
too rigorous for ordinary people. It 
somewhat resembles the Salisbury sys- 
tern, which consists in giving nothing but 
beefsteak and hot water, only that no 
water is allowed in the French system. 
The danger of the Salisbury plan is that it 
is apt to throw too much work on the kid¬ 
neys, and it is pointed out that as no vege¬ 
tables are allowed for the first fourteen 
days, serious results are apt to be induced. 

A SPECIAL DIET. 

For breakfast (at 9 a. m.) he had five 
or six ounces of animal food (no pork 
or veal), a biscuit, or one ounce of dry 
toast and a large cup of tea or coffee, no 
milk or sugar being allowed. For dinner 
(at 2 o’clock) he was given fish or meat 
five to six ounces, green vegetables, and 
one ounce of dry toast. Cooked fruit was 
allowed unsweetened, and he drank ten 
ounces of claret or sherry. The meats 
tabooed were pork and veal, and no 
salmon, eels, or herrings were given be¬ 
cause these fishes contain much oil. At 
6 p. m. he had tea, which consisted of two 
or three ounces of cooked fruit with a 
rusk, and nine ounces of unsweetened tea. 
Supper at 9 p. m., consisted of meat or 
fish (as given at dinner) three to four 
ounces, and seven ounces of claret or 
sherry and water. Here from twenty-one 
to twenty-seven ounces of solid food were 






NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 373 


given each day, only two ounces of bread 
being included, and from thirteen to six¬ 
teen of animal food, the balance being 
made up of vegetables and fruit. His 
fluid amounted to thirty-five ounces, or 
one and three-quarter pints. 

A NOTED SYSTEM. 

In Ebstein's system more fat is al¬ 
lowed. Breakfast (6 to 7:30 a. m.) con¬ 
sists of one and three-quarter ounces of 
white bread toasted, and well buttered, 
with nine ounces of tea without milk and 
sugar. At dinner (2 p. m.) the patient 
gets fat soup made from beef marrow, 
and fat meat (four to five ounces), with 
such vegetables as spinach, cabbage, 


asparagus, and even peas and beans. 
Stewed fruit (no sugar) is allowed, and 
the drink is represented by two or three 
glasses of light white wine, with a large 
cup of tea after dinner, without milk and 
sugar. At 7 130 supper, which consists of 
an egg, an ounce each of bread and butter, 
or, in its place, fat ham or roast meat, or 
cheese with fresh fruit. A large cup of 
tea is also ordered as before. Here the 
fat serves to reconcile the patient to the 
diminution of starch and sugar, and also 
tends to limit the craving for fluids. These 
illustrations will serve to show forth the 
principles on which a fat cure may be 
conducted. 


CONSTIPATION. 


This ailment is a very serious one in 
our present civilization. It affects all 
ranks and conditions of life, and if one 
has to deal with the question of sex, one 
might without fear of contradiction, de¬ 
clare its greater frequency in women than 
in men. The effects of constipation are 
of very far-reaching kind. There is 
scarcely an organ of the body, from the 
brain to the skin, on which it may not 
exercise an influence, and that, of course, 
to the greater or less disturbance of the 
health. Take, for example, the case where 
a person complains of a headache, with a 
foul tongue, a disordered appetite, and 
possessing a badly colored, sallow skin, 
the chances are that in such a case we will 
find constipation at the root of such trou¬ 
bles. They may arise from other causes, 
but the ailment we are considering is by 
far the most likely source and origin of 
them. 


REGULATION OF THE LIVER. 

These are not the only symptoms which 
constipation is calculated to produce. 
Many cases of supposed liver disturbance 
are really due to constipation, and the 
liver in its turn may induce constipation 
when the secretion of bile is deficient; for 
when bile passes, as it ought naturally to 
do, into the intestine, to assist in digesting 
the fatty materials in the food, it stimu¬ 
lates the movements of the bowel; when, 
on the other hand, the quantity or quality 
of the bile is altered, the intestinal move¬ 
ments become sluggish, and a constipated 
condition is produced. But the two great 
causes of this ailment—there are others— 
are. first, want of exercise, a too sedentary 
life, and, second, the use of improper 
foods—that is, foods unsuitable for easy 
digestion. Among other causes which 
may be named let me include tight-lacing, 
and physicians are right when they lay 






374 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


at the door of this condition so many of 
the cases they see in the female sex. It 
cannot be otherwise than injurious to the 
digestive work to find the stomach and 
other organs displaced and interfered 
with mechanically in the discharge of 
their duties. 

EASY REMEDIES. 

Women should keep this latter point in 
view if they suffer from this trouble, and 
in their case, as also in that of many men, 
a sedentary life, and a tendency to rich 
feeding and over-feeding, are to be also 
reckoned with in the production of the 
diseased state. If a person taking little 
or no exercise would go for a short and 
brisk walk regularly every night and 
morning only, he might experience a 
change in the character of his trouble. If 
a tumblerful of cold water is taken on 
rising it might, in addition to the walk, 
produce an excellent effect—so many cases 
can be cured by simple means, if only peo¬ 
ple will take a little trouble with the cure, 
and what is more to the point, will perse¬ 
vere with it. Rome was not built in a day, 
and constipation cannot be cured in 
twenty-four hours. It represents a habit, 
an evil habit, into which the digestive 
organs have fallen, and what we really 
have to do is to replace this habit by an¬ 
other, the natural and healthy one. 

PROPER FOOD. 

Next as to errors in diet. As a rule 
a diet which is dry to excess will induce 
this ailment, hence it is of importance 
that a fair amount of fluid should be in¬ 
cluded in the food arrangement. So also, 
particular food will tend to cause and 
increase the trouble. Cheese, salt foods, 
pickles, pastry, and rich foods at large 


are all to be looked on with suspicion. Far 
better are farinaceous foods, oatmeal, oat 
flour, and the like, light puddings, tripe, 
and easily digested articles at large, with 
wholemeal bread in place of the ordinary 
article. Fruits are excellent. Apples and 
oranges may be freely taken; prunes are 
good, and grapes also, only the skins 
must be avoided. A Spanish onion well 
boiled and taken at night is most excellent; 
onions or leeks, stewed, may form a din¬ 
ner vegetable; while salads are valuable, 
especially when taken with oil. With re¬ 
gard to other habits, no doubt tobacco has 
an action on the bowels in many cases, 
and the morning pipe or cigar is not to 
be eschewed, but valued, on this account. 
A simple diet, with no excess of meat, 
aided by the use of wholemeal bread, 
fruits, vegetables, and farinaceous foods, 
will cure any ordinary case, care being 
taken in the matter of exercise. Nor 
must there be any over-eating. Excess 
can only clog the digestive system, and 
render it less likely to discharge its duties 
in an efficient fashion. 

DRUGS. 

Next, as to drugs. Beware above all 
things of crude purgative medicines, and 
assuredly know that such medicines as 
salts and the like will only make your 
trouble worse. The indiscriminate swal¬ 
lowing of pills and potions is to be simi¬ 
larly criticised. You begin with one or 
two pills; this dose soon loses its effect; 
the dose is doubled, then quadrupled, and 
so the mischief grows. Drugs, let it be 
understood, may begin and will aid a cure 
—they are never to be regarded as the 
chief means of obtaining relief. Cascara 
is a well-known and safe remedy. Take 




Photographic view of Excelsior Geyser, Yellowstone Valley, Wyoming. This is the greatest in volume of any geyser in the world. 
















376 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


two tabloids of this substance at night, 
either plain tabloids or those in which 
cascara is combined with other drugs, and 
follow the dose in the morning with a tum¬ 
blerful of cold water if need be, or the 
liquid extract of cascara itself may be 
taken in water, a teaspconful for a dose. 
This remedy (along with proper diet) 
may be persisted in for some time, as it 
has no cumulative effects. A mixture of 
two ounces of liquid cascara extract, three 
dranchms of belladonna tincture, three 


drachms of tincture of nux vomica, and 
glycerine up to four ounces, is an excel¬ 
lent remedy. The dose is a small tea¬ 
spoonful in water at night. A pill con¬ 
taining half a grain of extract of aloes, 
half a grain of nux vomica extract, half 
a grain of powdered ipecacuanha, and one 
grain of powdered capsicum, is also an 
excellent remedy, and may be taken once 
daily before dinner, cold water being taken 
in the morning or a dose of any apperient 
water. 


VARICOSE VEINS. 


There are a number of definite causes, 
however, which tend toward the pro¬ 
duction of varicose veins, and we must 
give consideration to these causes by 
warning ourselves in the matter of pre¬ 
vention. In the first instance, certain cases 
of heart weakness will cause an ob¬ 
struction to the free return of blood, and 
thus produce varicose veins. The wear¬ 
ing of garters by women is another and 
very fertile source of this affection, and 
physicians add to this remark that a tight- 
laced woman, by reason of the extreme 
pressure of her corsets on the liver, will 
be apt to develop this trouble. Occasion¬ 
ally in pregnancy varicose veins are met 
with, but this condition disappears after 
childbirth as a rule. Constipation is an¬ 
other and very common cause. Pressure 
on the veins within the body of a loaded 
intestine is certain to develop varicose 
veins in people who are much on their feet, 
and piles (which, in one sense, are only 
varicose and enlarged veins) form another 
result of want of attention to the functions 
of the bowels. We, therefore, see that 
where from one cause or another—rang¬ 


ing from heart trouble or some local con¬ 
dition of veins, to excessh e standing, con¬ 
stipation, and garters—the flow of blood 
upwards in the big veins is obstructed, 
we are liable to meet with the varicose 
condition. 

Many variations exist in the develop¬ 
ment of this state. There may be only one 
or two veins enlarged, or in a bad case 
we may find all the veins on the leg sur¬ 
face swollen and distended, and appear¬ 
ing as it has been described, “like a bag 
of big worms.” The patient complains of 
pain, often worst at night; the leg is apt 
to swell, and the skin over the veins in 
due course becomes affected. It is in¬ 
flamed, liable to suffer quickly from any 
injury, such as a knock or blow, and in 
cases where such an injury has affected 
a well-marked case, a sore or ulcer may 
form, which is apt to open into the vein. 
Now, in such a case, we get a varicose 
ulcer, which, of course, bleeds slowly but 
profusely. Many persons are found lying 
faint from this cause, and death may re¬ 
sult from loss of blood. If any such acci¬ 
dent happens, bandage the leg above and 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


377 


below the wound; for as the valves of the 
vein (which prevent return of blood when 
they are healthy) are damaged, blood not 
merely flows up from below, but from 
above also. Remember this piece of ad¬ 
vice, because it is of important nature, and 
may mean the saving of a life. 

Regarding the treatment of varicose 
veins, there must first be some cure or re¬ 
laxation of the conditions (constipation 
and the like) which tend to produce them. 
The patient should be less on his feet, and 
when he rests he should keep his feet 
elevated. The mattress of the bed should 
be raised at the foot, so as to favor a re¬ 
turn of the blood. An elastic bandage— 
preferable to a stocking—should be worn. 
It should be put on first of all by an ex¬ 
pert, so that the patient may be taught 
its proper application, for a badly-applied 


bandage or a badly-fitting stocking will 
only make matters worse. Sometimes the 
bandage is worn with advantage over an 
ordinary thin stocking. It should be re¬ 
moved at night. Guard against consti¬ 
pation, I repeat, remove all garters, and 
(in the case of women) see that tight lac¬ 
ing is avoided. A plan of treatment once 
in vogue was that of blistering the veins. 
This can only be carried out by a phy¬ 
sician. In bad cases surgeons undertake 
operations for the ligature of veins or for 
the removal of the enlarged vessels. The 
circulation is carried on in such cases by 
the deeper veins, which are not affected. 
Bathing the veins at night after the re¬ 
moval of the elastic bandage with warm 
water, to which a little hazeline is added, 
is beneficial, by way of preventing undue 
tenderness of the skin. 


CAUSE AND CURE OF HAY FEVER. 


Science has at last discovered the sneeze 
germ. It is the tiniest imaginable particle 
of poison hidden away in the heart of the 
pollen grains of grasses and certain other 
plants. When one of these little grains 
gets into the nasal passages, it is partly 
dissolved, and the poison, absorbed by the 
mucous membrane, sets up a violent irri¬ 
tation. As a result, the victim suffers 
and, if naturally disposed to the com¬ 
plaint, pretty nearly sneezes his or her 
head off. 

That the pollen of plants was accounta¬ 
ble for the disease called hay fever, which 
makes so much trouble, has long been 
known. An American named Dunbar, 
who is director of the hygienic institute 
of Hamburg, ascertained the reason why 
these minute yellow grains, which are 


produced in the anthers of flowers to fer¬ 
tilize other blossoms, work such harm to 
many human beings. More important 
even than this, he has obtained a serum 
which, when people are treated with it 
by inoculation, renders them proof against 
the complaint. 

PHYSICIANS WORST SUFFERERS. 

The poison seems to be of an albumin¬ 
ous nature. It belongs to a class of pois¬ 
onous substances known to chemists as 
“toxalbumins,” the presence of which in 
certain species of mushrooms renders 
them so deadly. Fortunately most hu¬ 
man beings are not affected by it, but those 
whom it picks out as its victims often suf¬ 
fer frightfully. Physicians for some un¬ 
known reasons, are the worst sufferers, 



378 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


something like ten per cent of them being 
attacked. Women who travel much or 
who practice vocal or instrumental music, 
are particularly liable to hay fever. But, 
strangely enough, the disease is limited 
almost entirely to the educated classes. 

The pollen grains, which at the time of 
year when the grasses are ripening float 
about in the air everywhere, may fly up 
the nostrils; or they may enter the eye, 
and the poison, being dissolved by the 
tears, makes its way from the eye through 
the tearduct into the nasal passages and 
the pharynx. An irritation is promptly 
started, and violent sneezing follows, all 
of the membranous surfaces, including 
those of the eyes, becoming congested. In 
bad cases the victim is wholly disabled. 

Now, Dr. Dunbar has found that he can 
produce just such an attack artificially in 
a person liable to the disease by injecting 
beneath the skin a solution of the poison 
in water. Even in winter the familiar 
symptoms promptly follow. But individ¬ 
uals who are immune to the complaint 
under ordinary circumstances can not be 
made in this way to develop hay fever. 
An interesting point worth mentioning in 
this connection is that the poison seems 
to be the same in all the grasses, and 
also in the pollen of certain other plants, 
such as golden rod and rag weed ; which 
are makers of hay fever. The golden rod 
is a somewhat notorious offender in this 
line. 

METHOD OF OBTAINING SERUM. 

By inoculating a calf with numerous 
doses of the poison, Dr. Dunbar, without 
much inconvenience to the animal, suc¬ 
ceeds in introducing into its circulation a 
considerable quantity of the toxic sub¬ 


stance. When this has been accomplished 
he draws from the animal’s veins a few 
ounces of blood, which is allowed to stand 
in a closed jar for twenty-four hours, at 
the end of which the red corpuscles have 
sunk to the bottom, leaving the watery 
part of the blood on top. This watery 
part is the serum which is used in a hypo¬ 
dermic syringe for injection beneath the 
skin. If, as seems likely from experi¬ 
ments already made, it proves to be an 
effective cure for hay fever, the discovery 
may well be regarded as one of the most 
important in the history of medicine. 

From what has already been said, it 
will be understood why hay fever comes 
only when the grass is ripe. In the sum¬ 
mer of 1902 there was so much wet and 
rain that the ripening of the grasses was 
delayed by a fortnight, and it was noticed 
that the scourge did not arrive until two 
weeks after the customary date. Many 
people take sea voyages, or go to the 
White mountains for the purpose of escap¬ 
ing the attacks which they have so much 
reason to dread, but it is very difficult to 
get away from hay fever, owing to the 
traveling propensity of pollen, which, its 
particles being microscopic, is sometimes 
wafted hundreds of miles through the air. 
Showers of it occasionally fall on ship¬ 
board long distances out at sea. 

POLLEN IN CEREAL GRAINS. 

The cereal grains, such as rye and 
wheat, are grasses, and their pollen shares 
in the accountability for hay fever. 
Viewed under a magnifying glass, the 
tiny flowers of six grasses, which re¬ 
semble lilies in their structure, are very 
beautiful. As for the pollen, that which 
pertains to each species of plant is unlike 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


379 


that of any other plant. Indeed, by ex¬ 
amining any bit of honey one can ascer¬ 
tain, with the aid of a microscope, just 
what kinds of blossoms were rifled of 
their sweets by the bees to make it. 

All of us sneeze now and then, whether 
we have hay fever or not, but to few 
people has it ever occurred to inquire what 
a sneeze really is. Something irritates 
certain nerve ends in the lining of the 


nasal passages, and the result is a spasm. 
There is a sudden closing of all the pas¬ 
sages by which air may be expelled from 
the lungs, in preparation for which a sud¬ 
den breath is taken. A violent contraction 
of the diaphragm and other muscles fol¬ 
lows. Then the throat and nose are 
opened and a vigorous expulsion of air 
occurs. 


HYSTERIA. 


Many affections attack both sexes with 
seeming impartiality, but hysteria is un¬ 
doubtedly much more commonly met with 
in young girls and women than in boys 
and men, although the latter are by no 
means free from the complaint, especially 
those of Latin extractions—e. g., Italians, 
etc. 

Of the causes tending to produce it two 
are very important—namely, heredity and 
the patient’s bringing-up when quite 
young. A person may inherit from his 
or her parents an abnormally sensitive dis¬ 
position, and, again parents often fail to 
exercise a sufficient amount of control 
over their children, giving way to them 
too often, satisfying all their wishes, even 
when not for their good, and sympathiz¬ 
ing too deeply over every little trouble, 
real or purely imaginary. 

The result of this is that many chil¬ 
dren grow up with an absolute ignorance 
of self-control; they are unaccustomed to 
have any of their desires thwarted, and so 
are quite unfitted to take their proper place 
when later on they are brought face to 
face with all the cares and worries of 
everyday life. 

Between the years of eleven and sixteen 
or seventeen, just at the time when the 


future development of the body, both 
among boys and girls, is in its most im¬ 
portant stage, a large number are often 
too closely confined in the schoolroom 
and also at home, working for examina¬ 
tions of one sort or another, and the re¬ 
sult is that the physical part of their 
organization has to suffer in order that 
the purely mental side shall become more 
in evidence. Under these different and 
wrongful conditions hysteria will often 
supervene. 

Among other causes may be mentioned 
a sudden fright, grief and worries of dif¬ 
ferent kinds, or a disappointment in a love 
affair. 

Hysterical affections and “attacks of 
nerves" were apparently more common in 
the days of our great-grandmothers, and 
this was very likely due to the far more 
restricted sphere of life in which they 
moved, for they had no such recreations 
as cycling, tennis, and other forms of 
amusement and exercise by which they 
might add variety to their lives. 

THE STRENUOUS LIFE. 

But now it is quite a debatable point 
whether there is not great danger in the 
strenuous life led by many women both 



380 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


in the pursuit of pleasure and in their 
competition with man in many different 
occupations. 

To the untrained eye hysteria may 
closely resemble an epileptic fit. It may 
be, and very often is, preceded by alternate 
attacks of laughing and crying, with a 
feeling of a lump rising in the throat 
and causing difficulty of breathing, or 
there may be pains in other parts of the 
body. Next the patient falls into more 
or less violent convulsions, but, unlike 
an epileptic fit, there is no loud cry with a 
sudden fall, but rather a sinking down, 
often carefully, on to the ground or into a 
chair, and the sufferer, though apparently 
quite unconscious, seems to take care not 
to do any injury to himself—or herself, 
as the case may he—in the struggling. 

The arms and head and often the whole 
of the lxxly are thrown and swayed about 
in an aimless manner, and then after a few 
minutes the movements gradually cease 
and the patient may commence to cry 
again and then recover consciousness. In 
a very few cases sufferers may pass into a 
torpid condition from which there is often 
great difficulty in rousing them. 

TREATMENT. 

In the treatment of all cases of hysteria 
it is essential to remember that it is during 


the early years that most good may be 
done, as a “confirmed hysteric” is one of 
the most difficult and wearisome of people 
to nurse and watch. 

Regularity in hours of work, sleep, 
food, and exercise and regularity in all 
the different functions of the body should 
he absolutely insisted on and carried out. 

In other ways each case must be judged 
by itself, harshness and unjust treatment 
as well as, on the other hand, too much 
so-called kindness and sympathy having a 
great deal to answer for. 

The allowing of but a moderate time 
for study, the giving of some congenial 
occupation and exercise, gradual at first 
and then slightly increased as the patient 
improves in health and spirits, combined 
with firm moral control, will generally 
bring about a very great change for the 
better. 

In the more advanced cases the “Weir 
Mitchell” treatment is of substantial ad¬ 
vantage. The most important features of 
this system are complete isolation from 
the patient’s friends and relations, diet, 
and rest, with massage and electricity. A 
medical man should always see and advise 
as to how far the method should be carried 
out. 


SORE THROATS. 


Of all common complaints, to which 
both old and young are subject, a sore 
throat, as it is generally called, is certainly 
one of the most ordinary. But there 
are many varieties of sore throats, and 
it may be of interest to deal briefly with 
those kinds commonly met with. Acute 
pharyngitis—simple sore throat—often 
follows after catching cold or after ex¬ 


posure to cold, or it may be constitutional 
—say in connection with gout or rheuma¬ 
tism. In this case the throat appears to 
be red and more or less dry, while the 
tonsils and uvula are often a good deal 
swollen. The patient, as a rule, endeavors 
to cough; he has a continual desire to 
clear the throat, owing to a dry tickling 
feeling there. A considerable amount of 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 381 


pain follows the effort to swallow food 
or drink. There is also some slight rise 
of temperature and feverish feeling at 
the onset of the trouble, as well as stiff¬ 
ness of the neck and slight deafness. This 
kind of sore throat rarely lasts more than 
a few days, and an aperient of Epsom 
salts at the commencement, with a few in¬ 
halations of steam from a bowl of hot 
water, and avoidance of cold and 
drafts, will soon make the patient quite 
well again. A frequent sequel to this, 
but attendant generally on neglect in 
treatment, is the form of chronic pharyn¬ 
gitis that follows several different attacks 
of the acute form. Among clergymen, 
costermongers, public speakers, and others 
who have to strain their voices, as well as. 
among those who smoke or drink to ex¬ 
cess, it is very often met with. Here the 
best advice is to avoid the exciting cause, 
giving rest to the voice, and abstaining 
from tobacco and alcohol; gargles and 
sprays to the throat only give temporary 
relief. 

TONSILITIS. 

Acute tonsilitis, or inflammation of the 
tonsils, is a common form of sore throat 
among young adults. Wet, cold, and bad 
sanitary surroundings—bad smells, etc.— 
are a frequent cause. The attack com¬ 
mences, as a rule, with a chilly feeling, ac¬ 
companied by pains in the back and limbs, 


while the temperature is considerably 
raised, reaching 102 degrees, or higher; 
there is severe headache and great pain in 
the throat, more especially on swallowing. 
On examination, the^tongue is seen to be 
very furred, and the breath is very of¬ 
fensive; the tonsils are red and swollen 
and have small, creamy-white spots on 
their surface. As this form of sore throat 
is very catching and may attack all the 
inmates of a house, it calls for energetic 
treatment, isolation'of the patient being 
imperatively demanded. The great danger 
here is that diphtheria in its early stages 
may he mistaken for it; therefore, if there 
is the slightest doubt, a medical man 
should at once see the patient, especially if 
the white spots on the tonsils increase in 
size, connect, or spread to other parts of 
the throat. The treatment should be as 
follows—Entire rest in bed, with a milk 
diet. A thick piece of flannel, wrung out 
of ice-cold water, placed round the neck, 
will often give great relief. A dose of 
Epsom salts should be given, and the 
throat gargled frequently with a solution 
of chlorate of potash (eight grains to the 
ounce of water) added to a little glycerine. 
Later on, when the inflammation is sub¬ 
siding, doses of quinine and iron and other 
tonics should be used, and a more gener¬ 
ous diet adopted. A change of air during 
late convalescence is very beneficial. 


A CURE FOR WORRY. 


When the symptoms of worry begin to 
manifest themselves, says the “Family 
Doctor,” loosen your garments complete¬ 
ly, and lie down in the most restful posi¬ 
tion you can assume. Now close your 
eyes for a few minutes, and, raising your 
arms, let them fall and lie loosely and 


naturally above your head. Lie thus for 
a minute or two, and then begin to take 
deep, long breaths, as deeply as possible. 
Keep this up for five minutes, and you 
will then be in a physical condition to 
take up the mental work which you need 
to do. 



382 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FOMENTATION, 


Fomentation is a simple and effective 
method of applying moist heat to any part 
of the body by means of flannel wrung 
out of boiling water, milk, or any medi¬ 
cated hot fluid. It possesses advantages 
in many cases, and it is to be preferred to 
poultices, as it is lighter and cleaner, and 
can be frequently repeated without much 
trouble. In extensive inflammations, 
especially of the abdomen, in erysipelas, 
and to allay spasms in deep-seated parts, 
as in cases of biliary calculi, repeated milk 
fomentations are always to be preferred. 
When moist heat is prescribed for inflam¬ 
matory diseases of the joints or as a mild 
derivative in rheumatic fever, to relieve 
the articular pain, milk fomentations will 
be found serviceable. Much depends on 
the way in which the fomentation is pre¬ 
pared. It ought to be applied as hot as 
the skin can bear, and, although moist, 
the hot licjuid should be thoroughly 
scpieezed out of the flannel applied to the 
skin. A large piece of coarse flannel 
folded is employed for the purpose, and, 
after being soaked in the boiling liquid, 
it should be enveloped in a coarse towel, 
and the hot liquid may be wrung out of 
the flannel by simply twisting the ends 
of the towel several times round the 
fomenting cloth. Have two pieces of 
flannel and a pail of hot water in which to 
wash out each cloth before applying it a 
second time. After the operation well 
wash out the flannels and hang them in 
the fresh air (and sunshine if possible) 
until again required. To protect the hands 
use a wringer made by fixing a wooden 
rod to each end of the towel. To retain 
the heat it is advisable to apply a dry 


flannel or towel over the wet one. The 
milk must be sweet and good, also 
thoroughly boiled. Almost every form 
of disease will be much relieved and more 
speedily cured if milk fomentations are 
applied. Carefully sponge the fomented 
part with cool water, and use gentle mas¬ 
sage after. 

MAY CEASE GIVING DRUGS. 

Will the doctor of the future instead of 
prescribing some unpleasant drug, order a 
course of medicated vegetables? This 
may be the result of the present attempts 
to cultivate plants containing abnormal 
quantities of certain medicinal substances. 
It is well known that the amount of any 
characteristic element in a plant varies 
with its richness in the soil, and it is also 
known that the assimilation of mineral 
elements of the body is much more readily 
accomplished when they are partaken in 
the form of food. In the past if the body 
needed an excess of iron it has been sup¬ 
plied by tinctures taken through glass 
tubes. The modern idea is to supply this 
want by such vegetables as medicated 
spinach. 

Experiments with plants grown in soil 
enriched by hydrate of iron proved that 
they contained a much larger percentage 
of iron than those grown in the natural 
soil. This opens a whole vista of inter¬ 
esting possibilities. The iron, the potash, 
the manganese, the nitrogen needed by the 
system can be supplied more effectively 
and more pleasantly through vegetables 
than through medicines. 

Already many vegetables are known to 
have curative properties. Celery is gen- 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 383 


erally held to he good for rheumatism and and apples for nervous, dyspepsia and 
nervous disorders; lettuce for insomnia; rheumatism. Certified milk, .with its 
peanuts for indigestion; onions for liver stated proportion of fat, sugar and solids, 
complaints; carrots for scurvy; tomatoes would have seemed improbable some 
for the liver ; blackberries for diarrhoea, years ago. 

SOUR MILK IS ELIXIR. 


BACILLUS OF LACTIC ACID 
PREYS ON THE ENEMIES 
TO HEALTH. 

Any one desiring to attain a ripe old 
age is recommended to follow the ex¬ 
amples of the Bulgarians, who are noted 
for their longevity, and who consume 
large quantities of this cheap and easily 
obtained beverage. 

Sour milk contains a large bacillus, re¬ 
markable for the great quantity of lactic 
acid it is capable of producing. 

THIS MICROBE A FIGHTER. 

This microbe does not exist normally 
in the human body, and can be introduced 
with great benefit to the health, as it preys 
on the hundreds of thousands of microbes 
which infest the large intestine. 

It has been noted that there is a great 


similarity between old age and disease. 
The study of certain diseases has proved 
that there is no difference between the 
mechanism of senile atrophy and that of 
atrophy caused by the microbe on the 
person. 

BATTLE OF THE MICROBES. 

In fact, on the approach of old age, a 
veritable battle is waged in the innermost 
parts of the body. 

Research is therefore being prosecuted 
to discover some means of strengthening 
the vital elements of the body on the one 
hand and to weaken the aggressive tend¬ 
ency of the harmful microbes on the other. 
Therefore, whatever weakens or kills the 
harmful microbes accordingly lengthens 
life, and sour milk is now named by 
scientists as among the elixirs. 


PHYSICAL EXERCISE. 



NO. i—BOWLING AND THROWING. 

Imagine a cricket field, green turf be¬ 
low, blue sky above, and yourself the 
bowler. On the ground, to your right 
side, put a ping-pong or soft india-rubber 
ball. 

Get the best air and light you can. as 


little clothing as you can, and, if possible, 
have your feet bare. 

Now, keep your chin in, your back hol¬ 
low, your eyes facing forward (though 
at first to insure correctness, you may 
focus them on the part which is being 
used). 




384 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Keep your mouth shut, not locked. 

Do not frown. Rather begin to smile. 

Untense your hand. Get rid of all 
stiff and unnecessary tension. It is sheer 
waste of energy. 

Be leisurely, yet attentive. Do the 
exercise affectionately; it is your friend 
and helper. 

Now relax the left side, and let it hang 
easily limp. 

Bring your right hand and arm well 
hack and down with your right side, the 
weight coming upon the right foot, as if 




Move arm overhead. 


Get into an alert position, with the 
weight evenly balanced on the two feet. 

Stoop down with your right hand near 
to your right side, bending your right leg 
as little as you can; pick up the ball; bring 
it as far back and down as it will go be¬ 
hind your right ear; then throw it at some 
spot on the wall, fairly high up, so that 
it will come back to you as a catch. 

Follow the throw well through, as you 
did the bowling. Then catch the ball 
as it returns. 

Practice this with the right side till it 
is easy. 



you were beginning to bowl. If you like 
you can precede this with a short run. 

Then move your right arm, always at 
its full extent, up and forward and round, 
and the shoulder with it, till you end up 
with the first and middle fingers pointing 
toward some definite mark on the wall 
in front of you. 

That should leave you with your right 
arm, right leg, and left leg fully extended. 

The weight has now passed well on to 
the left leg. 

Recover. 


Then practice it with the left side, be¬ 
ginning as slowly as you like, and grad¬ 
ually increasing the extent, the pace, and 
the number of times. 

Three times is almost enough to begin 
with. 

Having trained the right side, you can 
probably—so recent experiments seem to 
show—train the left side to do that ex¬ 
ercise in a third of the time that it would 
have taken otherwise. 

Then do the exercise with the two 
sides alternately. 







breaking and falling, average one in about every six minutes. 























3S6 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Then rest, and breathe leisurely and 
rhythmically through the nostrils. 

Then, if you like, go through the action 
as far as you can with the two sides to¬ 
gether. 

Now have a good wash and rub down, 
perhaps with a wet towel. 

WHY DO THIS EXERCISE? 

If practiced carefully, so that you feel 
the muscles stretch without straining 
them, and if you gradually increase the 
extent, the pace, and the number of times 


Picking up movement. Throwiug action. 

it is a good exercise for both sexes, a safe 
one, a brief one, a cheap one, and a grace¬ 
ful one. 

It is interesting because it is like some 
important movements in our great game. 
It is more living to Anglo-Saxons than 
most of the exercises of their drills, and 
it will help athletics as well as cricket. It 
will tend to keep people in practice as well 
as in training. 

A sign of bad training is breathlessness. 
This exercise will encourage training and 
health. It will improve the breathing, 
and so help to prevent consumption. It 
will strengthen the heart and quicken 


and clear the circulation, so that you will 
not feel so cold in winter, or so hot in 
summer. It will aid the digestion—by 
indigestion you lose a great deal of the 
value of what you eat. 

The appearance will benefit through the 
general health, which will better the com¬ 
plexion, and by the improved figure and 
carriage. 

Not only will a large number of im¬ 
portant muscles be developed, hut you will 
get more independent control of the two 


End of throw. Catching. 

sides, and of the arms and legs, and of 
the poise. 

A most important part of control is the 
art of not using muscles unnecessarily. 
It corresponds to not spending money un¬ 
necessarily. He who frowns or tenses his 
muscles needlessly, is letting energy slip 
out like sovereigns from a hole in a 
pocket. 

The power of concentration on a good 
regular habit increases. The demand on 
the attention is so short and so small that 
this makes an admirable beginning on 
which to build the power of focusing the 
mind. 










NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


HEALTH HINTS. 

Save your energy by not worrying, and 
by not hurrying needlessly. 

To worry is a sign of cowardice; it 
shows you are afraid of something. 

It is uneconomical for it wastes nerv¬ 
ous force. 

It is ugly, for no one ever yet admired 
the expression of worry. And it has a bad 
effect not only on the whole system—as 
science has shown—but also on all the 
people around. 

It is, in fact, a crime. 

It is slow murder of yourself and 
others by poisoning. 

Have you found it difficult not to 
worry? Then at least try not to express 
worry. 

Notice all the expressions of worry and 
avoid them. 

Breathe leisurely and rhythmically. 

Keep your hands and most of your 
muscles relaxed rather than tense. 

Once again, notice your eyes; think of 
the horizon. 

Try, as it were, to broaden your face. 

Relax your mouth. 

Relax your hands. 

Take advantage of every outward 
breath to feel more and more relaxed and 
leisurely. 

NO. 2—A SWIM ON LAND. 

You can practice swimming exercises, 
if you are strong, while you lie on your 
front waist upon a bench or chair, or you 
can practice them to some extent as you 
lie upon your back upon the floor: but, 
best of all, I think, is an inclined plank, 
which keeps the excess of blood from your 
head, and lets you move your shoulders 
well back. 


38 ; 


However, you can do it quite well 
standing. 

Stand with the small of the back rea¬ 
sonably hollow. 

Throw the head well back. 

Keep the mouth shut, but not locked. 

Breathe quietly through the nostrils. 

Do not frown. 

If you can stand and exercise before a 
full-length mirror, so much the better. 

Imagine yourself to be in the sea or in 
a river. Wear as few clothes as possible, 



and try to recall the memory of the fresh 
and cleansing water. 

Keeping your left arm relaxed by your 
side, send your right arm up and out as 
far as it will go in front of you, with the 
palm down. This is the first and the fin¬ 
ishing position. 

Now, as you say “One,” turn the palm 
outward by turning the thumb down¬ 
wards, and draw the arm, with its fingers 
together, slowly back and slightly down 
till it comes to about the level of the side. 

As you say “Two,” bend your arm, 
bring your elbow to your sides, and the 
back of your hand under your chin. 








38S 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


As you say ‘‘Three,’' stretch the arm 
forward once again to the first position. 

Practice this with the “One, Two, 
Three,” till it becomes quite easy. 

Then practice it with the right hand re¬ 
laxed and the left hand moving. 

Be sure that the “One, Two, Three,” 
are connected each with its own move¬ 
ment. 

Insist on correctness before speed. 

Breathe through the nostrils, and 
breathe rhythmically at intervals if you 
are inclined to feel tired. 

Now for the leg movements, which are 


Beginning of the stroke and its finish. 

far more difficult, yet are far more im¬ 
portant. 

As you count “One,” draw up your 
right thigh, with the knee far away to the 
right, and with the leg well bent. 

As you count “Two,” bring your foot 
at right angles to your leg. 

As you count “Three,” stretch the leg 
backwards and round, and so to the posi¬ 
tion in which it is extended behind you, 
the toe pointing as far as it can away 
from you. 

Now do this with the other leg also, 
making sure that you associate the “One, 
Two, Three,” each with the right move¬ 
ment. 


Once again, he correct before you in¬ 
crease the rapidity. 

Then move the two arms together while 
you move first the right leg, then the left. 

As a variant, stand on tiptoe and 
stretch forwards while your arms are out 
to the front. 

Then go through these movements 
crouching as you send your arms round. 

After you have done this, soap your¬ 
self, and use warm water and rubbing: 
then wash off the soap, and rub yourself 
vigorously all over with a wet towel, and 
dry yourself with a rough towel. 

You can do it in your bedroom when 
you get up in the morning and at night 
before retiring. 

If you do it carefully, it will stretch 
your muscles without straining them. Be 
sure to increase the extent, the speed, and 
the number of repetitions, by degrees. 

If you do this, it will be a safe exercise, 
a cheap one, and a graceful one. 

Besides, it will be interesting to Anglo- 
Saxons, for it will resemble the swim, 
and recall the memory or anticinate the 
feeling of the swim, with its cleansing and 
invigorating influence. 

Swimming in its various forms, includ¬ 
ing the side, overhand, and other strokes, 
and diving, must develop the breathing 
capacity. It is a fine form of recreation. 
It may be a means of saving the life of 
yourself and others. 

For this, and many other reasons, it is a 
road to self-respect. 

Whether you practice these movements 
on land or in the water, they will be a 
training in poise, they will be practice for 
swimming itself, and will keep you in 
training when you have not the facilities 
for swimming. 






NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


389 


By developing your lungs they will help 
to prevent or cure consumption, from 
which a rower sometimes suffers when he 
has given up his rowing. 

They will improve the circulation, and 
so strengthen the heart. 

They will improve the digestion, and 
help to prevent or cure dyspepsia. 

The trunk-muscles—you can feel how 
many of them are being exercised—are 
among the most vital in the body. Make 
them healthy, and you will improve the 
position of the organs of the body. 

Thereby you will improve your appear¬ 
ance—your figure as well as your car¬ 
riage. You will develop muscle, rather 
than flabby fat. The swimming itself, of 
course, tends in this direction. 

By my special plan, neglected in nearly 
every orthodox system, you will get in¬ 
dependent control of the two sides, in ad¬ 
dition to the control and co-ordination of 
arms and legs, which most systems do cul¬ 
tivate. I have found it extremely difficult 
to combine the correct swimming move¬ 
ments of arm and leg. 

While one side moves, the other side 
rests, and must not be tense; take particu¬ 
lar care about that. 

To relax the unemployed side till it is 
the turn of that side to move will tend 
toward economy and beauty. 

Here, as before, you concentrate and 
focus your attention on an easy subject, 
and so increase your will power. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

On the same principle, do not give up 
the first practice of not worrying and not 
expressing worry. Add the second prac¬ 
tice to it, if this suits you. 

We are tired of the hackneyed phrase: 


“We all eat too much." Xot one out of 
a hundred people who repeals it troubles 
to study food values. 

It is not merely a matter of bulk, as 
these people seem to imagine; it is that we 
take too much of some thing's which, in 
small quantities, are right; it is that we 
take other things which, in large or small 
quantities, are wrong. 

It is also that we take too little of other 
things. 

In advising you to try fewer meals I 
am absolutely against any starvation prin¬ 
ciple. 

I want you to try fewer meals, but to 
insure enough nourishment in those fewer 
meals which you do take. 

An ounce of experience is worth a 
pound or two of theory. I am not going 
to commend the no-breakfast plan; I am 
merely quoting a personal experience as 
to its value. If it does not suit you, give 
it up. Try it during a holiday, when fail¬ 
ure does not matter so much. 

At first I ridiculed the idea, having been 
accustomed to a huge breakfast at school 
and college, and afterwards. And never 
yet have I understood the theory satis¬ 
factorily, except that the best energy 
stored up during the night should be used 
for the best work of the morning. 

We know remarkably little about food. 
It is easy to dogmatize ; it is almost im¬ 
possible to be scientific. The so-called 
scientists dogmatize without data. Bear 
in mind, then, that I do not guarantee re¬ 
sults ; I merely say what has happened in 
my case. I myself have advanced to the 
no-breakfast plan by gradual steps. 

To rush into the plan may suit some 
people; but, for the first three or four, or 
even seven days, there is almost certain 



390 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


to be an empty and weak feeling about 
ten or eleven or twelve o'clock. 

This is not necessarily healthy hunger; 
it may be fermentation. Give the plan a 
trial of nearly, or quite a week, before you 
condemn it. 

The gradual steps towards it vary. On 
the Continent you get a light and scarcely 
nourishing breakfast of coffee, roll, and 
butter. For my own part, I have a cup 
of tea. The proprietor of a well-known 
daily paper has fruit. Other people have 
cocoa, or hot water or milk. But, what¬ 
ever your steps may be, judge the plan by 
its results. Do not accept it or condemn 
it prematurely. 

NO. 3—A BIT OF BATTING. 

Once again, imagine yourself on good 
turf. 

Now, you are not bowling and fielding, 
as in the first article of this series but are 
batting. 

Use a stick, or a light Indian club, if 
you like, rather than a bat, so as to make 
tbe stroke free and correct before you try 
the heavy implement. 

Get ready to bat, but use one hand only, 
at first the left hand, while the right hand 
and side hang relaxed. 

Now imagine someone bowling to you. 

Picture a ball to which you will play 
forward. 

Bring your implement straight up and 
back. 

Then lunge out well with the left foot, 
making it point straight forward, not 
away to the right, and, with your left leg 
carrying the weight of your body, stretch 
out your left elbow and shoulder well and 
direct to the front, slightly to the right of, 
but very close to, the left foot. 


The back of your left hand at the end 
of this forward play should face for¬ 
wards. 

Throw your weight and the power of 
your body into that lunge, but do not let 
the end of the implement tilt up. 

Keep your back reasonably hollow; 
then recover poise and the alert position. 

Next go through the action with your 
right hand, now keeping your left hand 
relaxed. 

Then reverse the sides, as if you were 
batting left-handed. 

Then go through the ordinary batting 



action with both hands together. For the 
first few times, until you get into the way 
of the stroke, it might be as well to start 
with the two sides together. 

Next, starting with the alert position 
again, decide that for the following ball 
you are going to run out and hit it to the 
boundary. 

Imagine the ball coming. Run out 
sideways, facing towards the right with 
your body, but facing forwards with your 
head; let your right leg be straighter and 
firmer than your left, which will he bent. 

While you are running out, draw your 









NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


301 


right arm and shoulder well back and up 
with the implement in the hand. 

Let the left arm hang relaxed. Then 
sweep the right hand and arm and shoul¬ 
der, with a twist of the trunk to give extra 
power, down and out, and round and 
across, as far as it will go. Reco\er poise 
and jump back to the alert position. 

Now do this exercise with the left hand, 
the right hand hanging relaxed. 

Now pretend to be batting left-handed, 
at first with one hand at a time. 

At intervals breathe leisurely through 
the nostrils to avoid fatigue or strain. 

Then do both sides together, as in the 
illustration. Here, once more, you may 
begin in this way till the movement is 
understood. Bat with both sides together, 
first as a right-handed, then as a left-hand¬ 
ed batsman. 

After the exercise, rub down with a 
wet towel. Rub yourself all over with it, 
and then rub yourself dry with a rough 
towel. 

The advantages of this exercise, if you 
do it carefully—that is to say, if you 
stretch the muscles and feel them 
stretched, but do not strain them, and if 
you gradually increase the extent, the 
rapidity, and the number of repetitions— 
is that the exercise is safe, inexpensive, 
and not ungraceful. 

It should be attractive to boys and men, 
because it recalls part of the game of 
cricket. The practicer can imagine him¬ 
self to be some well-known batsman. 

Undoubtedly the strokes, if done cor¬ 
rectly—and a good player should be asked 
to criticise and point out mistakes before 
you get the wrong habits—will improve 
your game and your enjoyment of it, and 
will give you practice and training when 


cricket itself would take too long or cost 
too much. As in the previous exercises, 
the breathing through the nostrils will 
help to prevent consumption, as well as to 
invigorate the body. The heart will be 
reasonably worked, and the circulation 
will be improved. 

By the stooping and stretching move¬ 
ments the digestion should be bettered, 
and there should be far less dyspepsia and 
discomfort. 

The general excretion will be in¬ 




creased ; partly through the exercise, part¬ 
ly through the stretchings and twistings 
of the trunk. Thus you will be less self- 
poisoned than before. 

Besides this, your organs will be held 
in better position afterwards thanks to 
stronger muscles. You will improve your 
carriage, as well as your figure and your 
appearance in general, if only through the 
general health. 

This special exercise, as distinct from 
ordinary batting, will give you more in¬ 
dependent control of the two sides of your 
body, one arm resting while the other 
arm exerts itself. 









392 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The relaxing will help to relieve ten¬ 
sion and worry. 

The exercise is good for increasing 
your promptitude, rapidity, poise, recov¬ 
ery of poise, accuracy, and power, as well 
as making you at home with the different 
movements. 

Here, as in the previous exercises, you 
improve your will-power by concentrat¬ 
ing it on an easy beginning. 

But do not give up the other two exer¬ 
cises; add No. 3 to Nos. i and 2 and you 
will derive the greater benefit thereby. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

The health-hint for the first was "Do 
not worry and do not express worry.” 
For the second it was “Try fewer meals.” 
Now, continue these, and make an experi¬ 
ment with simpler foods. 

Many years ago, I rushed into the sim¬ 
pler foods, giving up in a moment all 
flesh-foods and eggs as well. My first 
object was to get nourishment which 
might take the place of flesh-foods. 

Before this I had enjoyed my ordinary 
mixed diet at the time, but had been re¬ 
markably unfit afterwards. 

My first trials were successful so far as 
regards fitness. I suppose others might 
have found the foods somewhat tasteless 
and monotonous. I did not. 

Then, at the suggestion of more than 
one expert, I began to attend to taste. 
Now I attend no less than before to nour¬ 
ishment, but much more than before to 
taste. This is the principle on which I 
advise people to try the simpler foods. 

Here, as in the fewer meals plan, there 
is no crying necessity for a sudden revo¬ 
lution of habit. 

Just as it might suit you to take a some¬ 


what smaller breakfast and move in the 
direction of no breakfast, so here it might 
suit you to take somewhat less of the flesh- 
foods and to move in the direction of no 
flesh; but do not, under any circum¬ 
stances, “give up meat and eat the rest,” 
as some cranks urge you to. 

No. 4—A ROW ON LAND. 

If possible, do this exercise in front of 
a mirror, so that you may attend to all 
‘the various points more easily. Sit on 
the floor, or on a low stool, or on one of 
the rowing-machines, which you can eas¬ 
ily get from a reputable athletic outfitter. 

Keep your back hollow, your chin in, 
and your mouth closed. 

Breathe fully, yet leisurely, as in the 
other exercises. 

Do not frown. 

The sitting exercise is familiar to all 
rowers; it is sufficiently described by the 
illustrations. 

When you come forward, be sure to 
keep your back hollow and your chin in. 

Stretch well in front. 

As you come back, bring your trunk 
back first, with your arms still straight¬ 
ened out. 

Then, when you have brought back 1 
your trunk, bend your arms and 
“feather,” and get ready to repeat the 
stroke. 

You can do as you like about using a 
piece of wood. But I should advise you 
not to. Get freedom of movement to 
begin with. 

In case you do not care to sit down, 
here is a variation of the exercise, which 
can be taken standing; like the swimming, 
it is especially good for the trunk-muscles 
and the poise of the body. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


393 


The two sides should be exercised inde¬ 
pendently. 

First send your right hand and arm out 
and down, keeping your shoulders square 
to the front, while you have your left 
hand all the time hanging relaxed and 
limp. 

If you like you may first practice the 
arm-movements as you sit down; after¬ 
wards transfer them to the standing posi¬ 
tion when they are easy to you. The 
order will be: 

Your right arm forward and down 
with your trunk, then your trunk back 
and your right arm back, your left arm 
being relaxed all the time; now your left 


The advantages of these movements 
are very like those of the previous move¬ 
ments, provided that the practice is care¬ 
ful and stops short of strain. 

You must gradually increase the ex¬ 
tent, the rapidity, and the number of 
repetitions. If you attend to this, and are 
sure that the air is fresh and the clothing 
as light as possible, then you will find the 
exercise safe, cheap, and not unbecoming 
while you are doing it. 

This exercise is quite interesting, and 
will improve one’s rowing, and keep one 
in practice and training at times when 
rowing itself is not feasible. 

The breathing will increase the lung- 




arm forward, and so on, your right arm 
being relaxed all the time; now both your 
arms together, as in actual rowing. 

Be sure to get correctness before speed. 

Breathe leisurely at intervals directly 
you begin to feel tired. 

Now add the leg movements as you 
stand up. You can easily get them by 
turning the illustrations sideways. 

If you like, keep yourself from falling 
over by holding with one hand to a bed 
or chair until you can balance yourself 
easily. 

After the exercise, rub yourself all over 
with a wet towel; then give yourself a 
borough dry rub with a rough towel. 


capacity, and help to prevent or cure 
chest disorders. 

The heart will be exercised, but not 
overtaxed, and so the circulation in gen¬ 
eral will be benefited. 

The digestion and assimilation of food 
should improve in a marked degree. 

The trunk movements are especially 
healthy for this purpose. If you do them 
correctly, they will bring your organs into 
a far healthier position. 

There is no doubt that your appearance 
will improve—your figure, your carriage, 
and your general look of fitness. 

As distinct from rowing itself, these 
movements will give you indeoendent 

C5 ^ 1 



















394 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


control, one side resting while the other 
works. There will thus be less of a 
strain, and the exercise will help quick 
athletics far more than rowing does. 

Rowing, especially when wrongly prac¬ 
ticed, necessitates too much tension of 
both sides together. 

Here, once more, you will increase your 
will-power by attending to this easy task 
and doing it regularly. But make up your 
mind to do the three first exercises as 
well as this one. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

Observe yourself or someone eise when 
there is any worry. You will be sure to 


Stand erect with arms 
brought back, 

find the eye tense, focussed to something 
very close at hand. You scarcely ever 
find a worrying person looking at an ob¬ 
ject very far away. 

To remove worry, unfocus your eyes 
from the immediate present, focus them 
upon a distant horizon. 

If there is no distant horizon, close 
your eyes and imagine one; you will 
actually feel the muscles that have hith¬ 
erto kept your eye tense now relax them¬ 
selves. 




During your holidays study the hori¬ 
zon, so that you may put it in the picture- 
gallery of your mind. Then, when you 
incline to nervousness afterwards, you 
will be able to look at this picture and 
imagine yourself far away. 

If you add a smile, or a broadening of 
the face, so much the better. 

And take advantage of every outward 
breath to untense yourself ever more and 
more. Breathe rhythmically, not jerkily. 

You may apply a similar plan to the 
ear when sounds are annoying you. 
Then, as it were, untense your ear; the 
sounds will jar far less than before. 

Strange and cranky as it may sound, 
you can even do the same to your nos¬ 
trils; you can untense your nostrils, and 
imagine some pleasant smell, as of violets 
or roses, which may be as far off as the 
horizon was from the eye, but which vou 
can bring near if vou like to use your will. 

If the actual horizon and the pleasant 
smells will not come to you, you can go 
to them, in your own mental country 
world and garden. 

You can scarcely imagine how useful it 
is to see certain things, from a distance. 

How huge the mountains look when 
you are close under them; how tiny they 
look when you are far away. 

Near at hand, they frighten you and 
impress you too much. Far away vou 
feel that you are mightier than the hills, 
especially the molehills of modern wor¬ 
ries. 

NO. 5—PUTTING A WEIGHTLESS 
WEIGHT. 

Imagine yourself about to- put the 
weight or shot, but do not use a shot at 
all. 






On the way South—the “Morning” following in the wake of the “Terra Nova” through the pack ice. From a photograph taken from the 
crow’s nest of the “Terra Nova.” “The two relief ships had to pass through a belt of several hundred miles of such ice. The ‘Terra 
Nova’ took the lead by request. In the right-hand bottom corner is the top of our mizzen mast.” 








396 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Hold your right hand as if it had the 
shot in it. 

Bring it well back and down with your 
right shoulder, behind you, and bring 
your head and trunk well back too. 

Balance yourself on your right foot. 

Keep your left side relaxed. 

Now, if you have room, take a few 
steps forward, as in putting the weight, 
then keeping most of your weight on your 
right foot, bend well back. 

Now go through the action of putting 
the shot,, which will mean that your right 


and, with your hand flat and open, sweep 
across to the right with the palm of your 
right hand down, and with a good trunk¬ 
swing, as if with your flat hand you were 
trying to knock the top off a tall sun¬ 
flower. 

Let. your hand, and arm, and shoulder 
go away to the right as far as possible. 

Next do this same exercise with the left 
side. 

Then adapt it and, as far as possible, do 
it with the two sides together; only this 
time, combine the shot-putting movement 
with a jump forwards. 



< 3 ^ 



Raise the hand 
and arm. 


Stretch the arm to 
the full. 


Let the • weight” go. 


Make a sweep from 
left to right. 


End of sweep. 


hand will come well up to its full extent, 
passing close to your right ear. 

With it will come the shoulder and the 
weight of the body. 

The right arm will stretch out to its 
full extent. But you must not lose your 
poise. 

You must check yourself, so that, if 
you were putting the shot, your feet would 
not go beyond the line. 

Then draw your right arm well back 
and away to the left as far as it will go, 


The advantages of this exercise, if it is 
done carefully, are similar to the ad¬ 
vantages of the other exercises. 

You must feel the muscles stretched but 
not strained. 

You must gradually increase the ex¬ 
tent, the rapidity and the number of repe¬ 
titions. 

If you do this, the exercise will benefit 
you; it will be inexpensive and should 
help to make you feel more vigorous. 

The sweep of the hand may help back- 









NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


397 


hand strokes at some ball games, and will 
also help sword-play and single-stick. 

By keeping your lips closed you will in¬ 
crease your breathing capacity and free 
your nostrils, and so help to prevent con¬ 
sumption. 

The exercise itself will quicken and 
equalize the circulation and develop, but 
not over-develop, the heart. 

Be sure to stop in case of breathless¬ 
ness, palpitation, or giddiness. 

The trunk-movements should help your 
excretion generally. 

If you keep your back hollow and your 
chin in, you will improve your carriage 
and bring your organs to a better posi¬ 
tion, and so help the health of the whole 
body, as well as improve your appearance. 

The repose of the unused side will help 
to give you independent control and physi¬ 
cal economy and to remove that tension 
which excessive use of dumb-bells and 
grip-dumb-bells is liable to bring to those 
who are already too slow and too tense. 

Once again, you will practice your con¬ 
centration by beginning on an easy task. 
Afterwards you will find concentration on 
harder tasks less of an effort than before. 

But do not give up the previous exer¬ 
cises, which should now be easy. Practice 
them first, and this one afterwards. 

All these five exercises together are 
nothing like a complete physical develop¬ 
ment. 

They are intended rather to train many 
important muscles, especially those of the 
trunk and legs, to give you a better cai- 
riage, better poise, greater promptitude, 
greater power. 

If you want to become a sort of crane, 
a slow weight-lifter and weight-mover, 
you must go to some one else; but if you 


are still young and wish to preserve your 
all-round physical fitness, I advise you to 
get rapidity before you get this straining 
strength which is so largely advertised as 
the ideal of physical excellence for all. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

Never send out a thought against any¬ 
one. 

Of course this does not mean never 
send out a thought against any fault of 
anyone. Neither does it mean that the 
writer always keeps to his own rule! He 
only tries to, and feels that it is a real 
mistake when he doesn’t. 

Anything connected with the morals 
and the character is connected with all¬ 
round health and fitness, but beyond this, 
every undesirable thought and emotion 
has a bad, an unhealthy, a poisonous re¬ 
sult on the whole blood stream. 

Professor Elmer Gates, of Washing¬ 
ton, made some experiments not long ago 
to show that every emotion, such as 
anger, fear, sorrow, joy, and so on, has 
a definite chemical effect upon the blood; 
and not only upon the blood, but upon 
every secretion and excretion of the body. 

We all know what effects these emo¬ 
tions have upon us. 

Notice the person who is angry. Is it 
not a physical thing as well as a mental ? 

He breathes shortly, sharply, shallowly, 
unrhythmically. That is physical. And 
it is unhealthy. 

He knits his brows; he contracts his 
eyes; he tightens his lips. And don't you 
see, if only from his changed color, that 
the whole circulation of his blood has 
been put out of order? 

Don’t you observe the clenching of his 







898 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


hands, the “clenching" of almost his whole 
body ? 

Yes, that anger is a physical thing as 
well as a mental. It is unhealthy, poison¬ 
ous, for the body as well as the mind. 

But, you say, what is the best thing to 
do—or, rather, the feasible thing—when 
a person has injured you? 

Without being ungenuine and insincere 
you can give a hearty wish that this per¬ 
son shall be healthy and good-natured and 
useful. 

You can heartily wish that he shall be 
good-natured and useful—to you! By 
that means you expel the old feeling with 
a new one. 

Imagine the person healthy and fit and 
helpful to you. That is, perhaps, the best 
remedy for anger. 

NO. 6—STARTING, WALKING, 
RUNNING. 

With the feet parallel and quite near to 
one another, move up each knee in turn 
straight in front of you to the level of the 
hips. 

Be sure that it moves in a straight line, 
not curving to the side, as it naturally 
tends to do. 

When you can keep the line easily with¬ 
out letting the chin, the shoulders, or the 
trunk, come forward, and keeping the 
small of the back hollow, then add the 
arm-movements, such as you would nat¬ 
urally use in walking or running, the 
right hand coming up with the left leg. 

Draw two parallel lines on the floor, so 
that your feet may easily be trained to 
come down in the right place. 

You can vary the pace, first doing the 
exercise slowly till it is easy, then increas¬ 


ing the speed, then imitating an alternate 
walk and run. 

Now for some changes. 

Instead of moving the two arms alter¬ 
nately, move one arm while you keep the 
other limp and relaxed. 

This is a good exercise in control. 

In this exercise you should practice 
often with both hands relaxed, overcom¬ 
ing the tendency to grip them or move 
them jerkily. 

Another change. 

The above is a movement straight for¬ 
ward. 

It is almost equally important to be 


Bring the knee level Movemeut for the 

with the hips. arms and legs. 

able to start in other directions, including 
backwards. 

My own favorite exercise is one in 
starting. 

Get into a more alert position, with the 
feet further separated, the toes turned 
only slightly outwards. With your legs 
slightly bent, poise yourself rather upon 
the insides of the balls of your feet. 

Keep your arms ready, not stiff, at your 
sides, but at about the level of vour ab- 
domen. 

In fact, get into a position from which 











NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


399 


you could easily start almost anywhere at 
a word of command from yourself or an- 
* her. 

Now actually start; first forward to the 
right, then back again, then forward to 
the left, then back again, then back to the 
left, back to the right, and so on. 

Try not to lose your poise ; or if you do 
lose it, try to recover it as soon as pos¬ 
sible. 

That shows you how you can take any 
exercises you like—my previous ones if 
you think them reasonable—and improve 
on them in some little way, so as to make 
them more valuable, more prize worthy. 

Only be sure that yours does not last 
for more than a minute. 

By the way. the cricket-drill—the first 
exercise-—lasts me less than half a minute, 
when I do it once. It is well within the 
margin. Doing each of the six exercises 
once takes me less than three minutes al¬ 
together. 

Do the exercise carefully, increasing 
the severity, and it will be a safe exercise 
for most people, especially if you stop and 
breathe leisurely and relax directly you 
begin to get out of breath or to feel your 
heart palpitating. 

In that case the exercise will help your 
trunk-muscles, and, therefore, your figure 
and carriage. It will help your digestion 
and excretion. 

But this exercise especially will train 
you in accuracy. 

The upward and downward movements 
of the knees in the Hundred-Up must be 
straight. 

Do not move fast till you can move 
straight. 

The body must be held properly, chin 
in, back hollow. 


Perhaps the movement is not so inter¬ 
esting as the cricket or swimming prac¬ 
tice. 

On the other hand, everybody should 
learn to walk and to run. We neglect 
our walking far too much. 

We should know our country, and we 
should improve our appearance in the 
streets, and we should keep in training. 

This exercise will encourage walking 
and running and will help to keep you in 
training. 

The art of being ready to move in ar 




direction, including backwards or to the 
side, is an art as valuable for the mind as 
for the tody. 

With ail our straightforwardness, di¬ 
rectness, strenuousness, and loyalty, we 
Anglo-Saxons often fail in promptitude 
and rapid adaptation. 

Quite apart from that, the physical 
habit may save your life when you are 
crossing the street. It will be of consid¬ 
erable value in self-defence. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

To hold an unfavorable emotion—an¬ 
ger, sorrow, fear, worry—poisons the 
blood, and—so Professor Elmer Gates 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 


400 


maintains—“every secretion and excre¬ 
tion of the body.” 

Now this applies whether your un¬ 
favorable emotion—anger, or even 
grumpy discontent—is about yourself, or 
some other person. 

You know how, in a dream, you think 
someone else is doing something—you 
wake up to find that it was yourself all 
the time. 

It was in the mind, but the mind, the 
memory or imagination, is always a gen¬ 
tle reality. 

You cannot remember or imagine a 
movement without actually doing it— 
mildly, but still actually. 

Think of yourself as unsuccessful, 
worthless, cowardly, and you tend to 
make yourself so, as well as to poison and 
depress and paralyze your energy. 

You can say to yourself, “Don’t be a 
fool,” or “I won’t be a fool.” That’s an¬ 
other matter. But to realize thoroughly, 
and genuinely, and convincingly that you 
are a coward is unhealthy. 

There’s a lot of talk about forgiving 
others: I have nothing to say against it. 
Only forgive yourself as well, and be sure 
that you have within you the power, and 
that it’s worth while not to make the mis¬ 
take again. 

Use your intelligence, if your will 
seems weak. 

Find out how to avoid the mistake. 

Never picture yourself as worthless to 
the core. 

The core is the soundest part of you. 
Within you there’s the all right. And if 
you invite it, it will show itself. 

What puts it back so often is to be 
told by you that it doesn’t exist. 

Set yourself in its place. 


It would offend you if people constantly 
insisted that you were simply no one! 
Yet that's what you are often saying to 
your best friend, your best self. 

And it’s this which is slowly poisoning 
you, as well as your mistakes in diet, 
breathing, and so on. 

NO. 7—HOW TO IMPROVE THE 
UP-BREATHING. 

Most of us, thanks to too much eating 
and drinking, too much sitting in wrong- 
attitudes, too little training and remedial 
work, have some of our vital organs far 
too low. 

We must raise them and hold them up, 
if we wish to be healthy. 

Suppose your diaphragm, which is the 
floor of your lungs and heart and the ceil¬ 
ing of your stomach and liver, sags down 
too low, then it presses on your stomach 
and liver, and hinders them from doing 
their work properly. 

They, in their turn, may press down on 
your colon, and so induce constipation. 

Now it is right that the diaphragm 
should sometimes come down and press 
upon and massage the stomach and liver, 
but it is equally important that it should 
be held up at times, so that these organs 
may not be cramped. 

It is unlikely that you can digest your 
food, and so on, if these organs are thus 
hampered. 

The exercise will encourage you to hold 
your chin in, otherwise you cannot 
breathe so thoroughly. 

It will develop your middle and upper, 
rather than your lower breathing; though 
it may also develop your lower breathing 
against resistance. 

Men need this practice more than many 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


401 


badly-corseted women do, for these have 
their lower breathing neglected, their up¬ 
per breathing over-developed. 

An inducement to you to perform this 
exercise is that you help your hair to 
grow, and, by the second exercise, help to 
remove headache. 

It may counteract baldness, in so far as 
baldness is due to a dry scalp, poor in 
blood and poor in oil. Of course the ex¬ 
ercise is not a panacea for hairlessness. 
It may he a help; that is all. 

The best time for it is when you have 
washed your head with pure soap and 
have dried it and have put a little oil 
or comparatively harmless hair-restorer 
upon it. 

Paraffin or petroleum, ammonia, acetic 
acid, sea-water, potato-juice, all sorts of 
things are said to restore the hair of cer¬ 
tain people; hut they are more hkely to 
restore it if they are accompanied by 
sensible rubbing. 

As usual, keep one hand relaxed and 
limp at your side. 

With the other rub your scalp, especial¬ 
ly the top-part towards the hack, with the 
tips of your fingers and thumb. 

Keep ycur chin in. 

Keep the expression of your face pleas¬ 
ant. 

Before your fingers and thumb become 
tired, reverse the hands, and so on. 

Gradually increase the time during 
which you continue the exercise from day 
to day. 

After it, wash your hands, and comb 
and brush your hair. 

In case of tendency to headache or de¬ 
pression, keep one hand relaxed as before, 
and use the other as follows: 

Start with the finger-tips and the palm 


just above your eyebrows, and stroke 
softly upwards over the forehead and 
head, and down to where the collar is, or 
would be. 

At the end of each stroke, which you 
should do with the two hands alternately, 
shake the hand you have been using, as 
if you were getting rid of what is unpleas¬ 
ant. 

If this does nothing else, at least it will 
free tlfe fingers, and improve their rapid- 




Bad position Massage of 

of slightly head and 

bald person. upper 

breathing. 



Massage the Stroking to 
head with remedy 

both hands. headache. 



ity and the appearance of the wrist and 
arms. 

A remedy for a headache in some cases 
is to walk backwards. 

I have never yet seen an explanation of 
this, but may it not he that it makes what 
is just in front of you recede from your 
view ? 

An accompaniment of a headache often 
is a tense and a straining eye. 

This exercise w ill help to do what Dr. 
George Wilson advises vou to do—to un- 
focus and untense your eye, and look at 
something further off, if possible the hor¬ 
izon. 










402 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


This walking backwards will be a use¬ 
ful accomplishment anyhow; for instance 
when you are crossing a road or playing 
a game of lawn tennis, or cricket, or foot¬ 
ball, or hockey. 

It will come in in dancing, and on a 
number of other occasions. 

When you can do it easily, then prac¬ 
tice it up and down the inclined plank as 
well, as I suggested last week. 

This exercise can be practiced fdt vari¬ 
ous lengths of time, from a quarter of a 
minute up to ten minutes. 

Still continue the previous seven exer¬ 
cises, I can perform them all once in less 
than three minutes. 

HEALTH HINTS. 

In the early morning, before you have 
your bath, and, if you like, for a minute 
or two afterwards, take off all your cloth¬ 
ing, open the window top and bottom, let 
in as much air and light as you can, and 
enjoy an air-bath. 

In case your window is overlooked, you 
can put a thin gauze curtain over it just 
for the time being, or an -American 
mosquito-wire curtain. 

During this air-bath, if you are at all 
cold, rub your skin, and pinch the skin 
all over the opposite side with each hand, 
using the thumb and first finger. 

Be particularly vigorous in pinching 
your arms. This will free the muscles 
and improve the circulation. 

Go through all the exercises now—but, 
in case you begin to feel chilly, or tired, 
at once have your bath or put on some 
covering. 

If you do not care for the full air-and- 
light bath, have a partial one at any rate 
—for the upper part of your body, and 


especially for your feet. Light is very 
important to the skin. 

As a proof of this it is well known how 
the patients who were on the lighter side 
of a hospital at St. Petersburg were found 
by Sir James Wylie to he far healthier 
than the patients on the dark side. This 
was while the air of both sides was sim¬ 
ilar. 

It must have been entirely a matter of 
light, and the curative effects of light are 
being realized today, not only by the Fin- 
sen cures, but by other and far more 
widely reaching remedies. 

NO. 8 —BREATHING, STRETCHING, 
RELAXING. 

This exercise is a good one to perform 
after work or exercise, directly you begin 




to their full extent. 

to feel jaded with work or out of breath 
with movement. Do it in private! 

Keep your left hand relaxed and limp 
by your side all the time. Do not frown, 
and do not hurry, especially in recovering 
the upright position. 

Sit straight on the edge of an armless 
chair or of a bed, or else stand evenly bal¬ 
anced on your two feet. Keep the two 
feet well apart. 











NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


403 


Now, with closed lips, not with 
clenched teeth, take a deep and full breath 
in and up through the nostrils from the 
bottom to the top of the lungs. 

By the end of the breath you will have 
drawn your abdomen in and your dia¬ 
phragm up. 

The breath should have lifted with it 
your trunk, your chest, perhaps your 
shoulders, your head, and even your eyes. 

As you breathe in, lift up also one hand 
and arm, stretched with palm forward to 
its full extent short of strain. 

Lift it up in front of you, and then 
above your head as high as it will go 
without actual discomfort. You should 
feel the muscles stretching. 

Hold the breath in. and hold your hand 
up for a moment or two. 

Now do not force that breath out, and 
do not rush that hand down. 

Let the breath ooze out of its own ac¬ 
cord ; let the hand sink quietly and limply. 

After practice you will find that this 
outward breath will naturally close your 
eyes, make your head droop, and then 
lower your shoulders and chest and trunk 
till you sink forwards and down. 

When you have sunk down a little way, 
repeat the deep breath in, but do not let it 
raise any part of you except your chest. 
As it oozes out, sink further forwards and 
down. 

Stay thus for a moment, and think of 
something clean and pleasant. 

Then get up slowly by bringing your 
hands back towards your body. That will 
lift your trunk, and then you can lift your 
head. 


As you finally lift your head and open 
your eyes, take in a deep and invigorating 
breath. 

Follow this exercise by rhythmical 
breathing. 

Do not force the breath now, but 
breathe just slightly more fully than usual. 

Now do this with the hands reversed, 
the right hand limp by the side, the left 
hand raised. 

Then do it with both hands raised to¬ 
gether. 

The exercise seems absurd to you. 
Most of us anxious hustlers need such an 
exercise in cities. 

The object of it is first to stretch you. 

Everywhere in cities you tend to be 
cramped—your whole body and every 
part of it. Try to counteract this. 

Remember, too, that the stretching 
empties many of your muscles of their 
waste, and lets fresh blood flow in. 

Then the relaxing must be economical; 
it must save energy by stopping leakages; 
for you use energy whenever you are 
tense. 

It must give you also more gracefulness 
and freedom. These cannot exist when 
there is so much over-tension in the body. 

On the other hand, it will eventually 
give you firm centres in your body, for 
you will have more power there, wasting 
less through your extremities. 

Endurance will have increased. What 
we call overwork is mostly a matter of 
wasted force. It is not that we have 
worked too much; it is that we have 
worked wrongly and uneconomically. 



404 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SPECIAL EXERCISES FOR HEALTH AND STRENGTH. 


ADOPTED FOR USE IN THE U. S. 

ARMY AND NAVY. 

The first exercise is designed to 
strengthen the muscles of shoulders and 
arms, to assist in straightening the shoul¬ 
ders and to throw the chest forward. In 
assuming position for all the exercises 
one stands in an erect position, with ab¬ 
domen drawn in and chest thrown out, 
though without any tensity, the arms 
hanging loosely at the sides, heels to¬ 
gether and with toes turned out obliquely 
at an angle of about 45 degrees. In the 
initial exercise one raises both arms later¬ 
ally until they are horizontal with the 
shoulders, the palms turned upward. The 
arms are then raised in a circular man¬ 
ner over the head and the fingers brought 
together, so that the backs touch their 
full length and the tips are at a point about 
an inch above the head, after which the 
arms are raised to their full height with 
the palms of the hands touching and 
brought back to the original position by 
a sweeping full-arm movement to the 
rear. 

The second movement is particularly 
beneficial for the chest muscles and the 
shoulders. The arms are raised until they 
are horizontal in front of the body, with 
the palms together, and then brought 
back by a full-arm sweeping movement to 
the rear, at the same time raising the 
body on the toes, after which the arms 
may be allowed to drop to the sides or 
swung to the horizontal position in front 
and the movement repeated at will. It 
should be continued, if possible, until one 
is able to bring the hands together in the 


Another excellent exercise for the mus¬ 
cles of shoulder, chest, arms and hack, and 
also for straightening the shoulders, is 
the third in the regulations, which con¬ 
sists of raising the arms laterally until 
they are horizontal with the shoulders and 
then describing a small circle with each 
arm, fully extended, upward and back¬ 
ward from front to rear, without allow¬ 
ing the hands to pass in front of the line 
of the chest. The fourth exercise is pri¬ 
marily designed to help straighten the 
shoulders a little more and thus bring 
about the erect carriage without which no 
soldier has a good appearance. In it the 
tips of the fingers are placed lightly on 
the shoulders, with the upper arm stand¬ 
ing out horizontally, and the elbows are 
first forced to the front and then as far to 
the rear as possible. 

EXERCISE FOR HAND AND WRIST. 

An exercise for the hand and wrist is 
the fifth. The arms are raised laterally to 
the height of the shoulders and the hands 
then closed with considerable force, after 
which they are opened quickly, spreading 
the fingers and thumb as far apart as one 
can. The forearms alone are raised at 
the beginning of the sixth exercise until 
they are made nearly vertical, with the 
fingers extended and joined and the palms 
of the hands turned toward each other. 
The hands are then thrust upward with 
force until the arms are extended to their 
full length, when they are brought back 
to the original position at the side by an 
oblique extended full arm swing to the 
rear. In the seventh exercise the fore¬ 
arms are raised until horizontal, with the 


rear. 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 405 


hands closed and backs down and the 
elbows forced to the rear. Then the en¬ 
tire arm is thrust forcibly to the front un¬ 
til the arms extend horizontally from the 


A splendid thing for reducing the ab¬ 
domen and, in fact, exercising nearly 
every muscle in the body, is the eighth or 
trunk exercise. In this the hands are 



Peculiar photograph of workman making a relief map of the Philippines on a scale of one 

and one-fourth inches to the mile. 


shoulders, the backs of the hands at the 
same time being turned upward. From 
this position the arms are brought back 
to the first position, forcing elbows and 
shoulders to the rear. 


raised to the hips, fingers in front and 
thumbs in rear, the elbows held well back. 
The body is then bent forward at the 
hips as far as is possible, then raised and 
bent to the rear, all the while the knees 



















406 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


being held rigid and not allowed to bend 
under any circumstances. Any man with 
a large abdomen who will go through this 
exercise alone half a dozen times each 
morning and evening for several weeks 
with regularity will find the waistband of 
his trousers fitting him too loosely by a 
couple of inches at the end of that time. 
The ninth exercise is supplemental to the 
eighth in reducing the abdomen and 
strengthening the hip and abdominal 
muscles. The hands are placed on the 
hips, as in the preceding exercise, and the 
body then bent first to the right and after¬ 
wards to the left as far as one can with¬ 
out twisting it or raising either heel from 
the floor. In all these trunk exercises 
rapidity of execution should be carefully 
avoided and the movements made slowly. 
The next exercise consists of bending the 
trunk to the right, then bringing it around 
to the left and afterwards to the front 
while still in a bent position, thus describ¬ 
ing three-quarters of a circle. 

EXERCISE FOR ARM AND BODY. 

Arm and body exercises combined are 
the eleventh and twelfth, two which will 
place the greatest tax on the individual 
until facility in their execution has been 
attained. In the eleventh the arms are 
raised from the sides until the hands meet 
above the head, with palms to the front, 
fingers pointed upward, thumbs locked to¬ 
gether and the shoulders pressed back. 
The body is then bent over at the hips 
until the fingers, if possible, touch the 
floor, both arms and knees being kept 
straight. An erect position is then as¬ 
sumed, slowly, with both elbows and 
knees still rigid, and the arms allowed to 
drop to the sides only when all the exer¬ 


cises of this particular form one intends 
to go through have been finished. The 
twelfth exercise consists of bringing the 
arms fully extended to the front in a 
horizontal line with the shoulders, the 
palms turned downward and the fingers 
'extended and joined, when the body is 
bent forward as far as possible and the 
arms then swung upward without bend¬ 
ing elbows or knees. With the arms 
maintained in this position the body is 
straightened and the arms then brought 
forward in a full sweep to the horizontal 
position in front. 

The remaining exercises are all for the 
legs and feet, and if consistently gone 
through with regularly each day will 
bring the muscles of those members to a 
point of efficiency in the course of due 
time when a walk of ten miles can be 
taken without fatigue. In all these exer¬ 
cises the hands are placed on the hips as 
during the trunk movements. The knees 
are separated and bent as much as pos¬ 
sible in the thirteenth exercise, lowering 
the body with the head and trunk erect 
and the heels on the ground, after which 
the body is raised and straightened and 
the knees brought together. In the four¬ 
teenth exercise the movements are the 
same except that when the knees are bent 
the heels are raised so that the entire 
weight of the body rests on the balls of 
the feet until the erect position is again 
assumed. 

The left leg is brought forward in the 
fifteenth exercise, with the knee straight, 
until the heel is about fifteen inches in 
front of the toe of the right foot and then 
swung a similar distance to the rear, the 
body all the while balanced on the right 
foot. The right leg is exercised in a simi- 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


407 


lar manner. In the suceeeding exercise 
the leg is raised to the front with the 
knee bent and elevated as much as possi¬ 
ble, the leg from knee to instep vertical 
and the toes depressed, after which it is 
restored to its former position and the 
other leg exercised in the same manner. 

In the seventeenth and last exercise the 
body is raised on the toes, with the heels 
together, and then the feet are slowly 

TESTING THE PURITY 

A test for coffee: When purchasing- 
coffee, gather a little of it in the palm 
of the hand, after it has been ground, and 
press firmly; if it falls loosely apart when 
the hand is opened, the coffee is unadul¬ 
terated, but when the particles adhere, the 
fact that it cakes denotes the presence of 
some substance other than coffee. 

A simple method of determining 
whether one has purchased butter or 
oleomargarine, is to put a little of each 
in two small tins, and heat over a gas 
burner. The oleomargarine will boil, 
while the butter will bubble up and burn. 
Good butter has a sweet, fresh odor as it 
burns. 

One who has lived in the South will 
not purchase sweet potatoes which show 
little sprouts on their surface, or places 
where sprouts have been removed, for 
these indicate that the potatoes were ex¬ 
posed to rain or damp weather before they 
were dug, and no matter how they were 
prepared for the table are sure to be \\ a- 
tery and “soggy.” 

The tiny booklets containing little 
strips of red and blue litmus paper, which 
can be procured at any chemist's, will be 
found useful for many purposes in the 
kitchen. The wife of one druggist uses 


brought back to a flat position on the 
floor. 

From this summary of the exercises it 
will be seen that not a muscle in the body 
is exempt from development under the 
setting-up movements and that the 
straightening of the shoulders and 
greater flexibility of the fibers of strength 
are two of the things most largely ac¬ 
centuated. 

OF COMMON FOODS. 

one of the little blue strips to discover 
whether milk has begun to “turn,” and 
will be likely to curdle if used for cus¬ 
tards. When making biscuits or cake of 
sour milk and soda, after adding the soda 
to the milk, a strip of the red litmus paper 
will show at once by turning blue if too 
much soda has been added, which does 
away with all “guess work” on the part 
of the cook. 

The mother who purchases the candy 
she gives to her children can know 
whether they are eating pure sweets or 
not by soaking a bit of the candy in clear 
cold water. If there is a sediment in the 
bottom of the glass, the presence of some 
sort of impurity or adulteration is indi¬ 
cated, usually “terra alba,” and while the 
adulteration may not be exactly harmful, 
the child is not taking pure sweets into 
the stomach. 

Since we are told that it is not the 
candy but the adulteration that is in¬ 
jurious, it is well to have at hand a sim¬ 
ple means for determining whether one is 
eating pure sugar, with harmless flavor¬ 
ing, or some one or more of the many in¬ 
genious adulterations which are sold un- 
der the name of candy. 





408 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


TO TEST EGGS. 

A simple method has been found for 
testing eggs. The egg is placed in a 
saturated solution of common salt, and 
the position that it takes will show, so 
it is claimed, its age. A fresh egg lies 
in a horizontal position at the bottom of 
the vessel; an egg from three to five days 
old shows an elevation of the flat end, so 
that its long axis forms an angle of twen¬ 
ty degrees. With an egg eight days old 
the angle increases to forty-five degrees; 
with an agg fourteen days old, to sixty 
degrees, and with one three weeks old, to 
seventy-five degrees, while an egg a 
month old floats vertically upon the point¬ 
ed end. 

WHEN TO EAT BANANAS. 

In their native countries bananas are 
seldom eaten before the skin is discolored 
and the pulp of so soft a consistence that 
it can be scooped out with a spoon. Un¬ 
der the artificial conditions in which they 
are placed in these climes they undergo 
somewhat rapid changes, and the times at 
which they are best suited for consump¬ 
tion may be short and difficult to predict 
with any degree of precision. Authori¬ 
ties, however, claim that they are habitu¬ 
ally eaten here before they have reached 
their most suitable stage. Before they 
are thoroughly matured, moreover they 
are apt to be insipid in flavor and to cause 
dyspepsia and other forms of intestinal 
disturbance. 

They should not be eaten before the 
skin is blackened in places, or when there 
is any reluctance in the skin to separate 
from the pulp. Housekeepers know how 
bananas will change in the Course of a 
sinele niffit from a manifestly sound con¬ 


dition to one in which the skin is black¬ 
ened and the pulp soft and slightly dis¬ 
colored. Now, children infinitely prefer 
these last bananas to those that are ap¬ 
parently sounder, though their elders may 
hesitate to gratify their taste in this re¬ 
spect from a fear as to the wholesome¬ 
ness of such fruit. Attacks of gastric or 
intestinal disturbance from the use of un¬ 
sound bananas are far from common, and 
it may well be that in this instance the 
natural inclination of the child covers 
more wisdom than the caution of its 
elders—in fact, experts say that the ba¬ 
nana can hardly be in too ripe a condi¬ 
tion for eating. With the rapid changes 
the fruit undergoes it is hardly surprising 
that cases of friction between the sanitary 
authorities and the venders should be of 
frecjuent occurrence as regards the fitness, 
or not, of the fruit for sale or consump¬ 
tion. So be careful to see that the fruit 
you eat is tender and ripe. 

SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF AN 
IDEAL DIET. 

The ideal diet is one that strikes a bal¬ 
ance between the three different chemical 
foods. Practically everything we eat con¬ 
sists of these in varying proportions, viz.: 
Fats, carbohydrates, which are the starch 
and sugar foods, and proteids, or ni¬ 
trogenous foods. 

Those who combine the three in rea¬ 
sonable proportions enjoy the best diet, 
and the best health. 

Taste is an important feature in diges¬ 
tion. and the fact that well-cooked meat 
appeals to the taste to a greater percent¬ 
age than any other food is also an argu¬ 
ment in favor of a moderate meat diet. 
It is all a question of percentage. 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


409 


HOW TO TELL POISON IVY. 


MEANS FOR ITS EXTERMINATION 
AND REMEDY FOR THE 
IRRITATION. 

“What is poison ivy?” “What does it 
look like?” “How can it be distinguished 
from Virginia creeper?” These and sim¬ 
ilar questions have been asked me hun¬ 
dreds of times, says a writer in Country 
Life in America, and they are questions 
that it is well for every one to be able to 
answer for himself. The leaves of poison 
ivy often change to beautiful tones of 
yellow and red in the fall, and are sources 
of great temptation to any one who is out 
hunting autumn leaves for decoration. It 
is better, however, not to have the decora¬ 
tion than to run the risk which one incurs 
by handling this plant, unless, like myself, 
he happens to be immune from its effects. 

Poison ivy has three leaflets, and Vir¬ 
ginia creeper has five. The former has 
white berries, the latter purple. 

Poison ivy is often troublesome in gar¬ 
dens and grounds, as well as on the farm, 
where it infests fence rows. On the farm 
it can be plowed out, but a single plowing 
is not enough. Five or six may be neces¬ 
sary before the fragments cease to send 
up new leaves. Any plant can be smoth¬ 
ered in this way—even “quick-grass,” 
which is propagated by being cut to 
pieces. The one essential thing is persist¬ 
ence. The leaves of a plant are its 
“lungs,” and if the leaves are cut off as 
soon as they appear, the plant will die. 
It is a sure way, but you must keep “ever¬ 
lastingly at it.” 

The same principle applies to the gar¬ 
den, where poison ivy can be exterminated 
by the frequent use of the hoe. Few peo¬ 


ple are so sensitive that they will be 
poisoned at the distance of the length of 
the hoe handle. Most cases of poisoning 
are supposed to come from direct contact 
of the leaves on cut fingers or other 
bruised surfaces. A good way to get rid 
of poison ivy in a garden is to hire some¬ 
one who is immune to root it out and keep 
rooting it out until it never shows a leaf 
again. 

All the drugs in the world are of no 
use in preventing a bad case of poisoning, 
unless one begins to do something as soon 
as the tell-tale itching begins. When the 
postules break open one is almost sure to 
be in for three days or a week of suffer¬ 
ing. It is well to have a little bottle of the 
extract of grindelia in the house all the 
time. Ten cents' worth is enough. You 
can get it at any drug store. Rub it on 
the affected parts every five minutes until 
the trouble is averted, and be sure to lose 
no time in beginning. 

There is another member of the Ruhs 
family which we should avoid, as it is as 
poisonous as poison ivy, if not more so. 
This is the poison sumac, or poison elder 
(Rhus Vernix). It is a short or small 
tree, sometimes growing to a height of 
twenty-five or thirty feet, but usually not 
more than ten or twelve. It is indigenous 
to the Middle and Eastern States, grow¬ 
ing in swamps and low marshy places. Its 
foliage consists of from three to five pairs 
of opposite leaves and one terminal leaf 
to each petiole, and to an ordinary ob¬ 
server it appears like our common stag¬ 
horn and other sumacs. At all times its 
swamp-loving habits—for it is never 
found elsewhere—should serve to identify 





410 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


it, while in autumn it proclaims 
itself in unmistakable terms, for, as Tho- 
reau puts it, “it blazes its sins as scarlet.” 
Moreover, its berries are white, as are 
those of the poisonous ivy, instead of red, 
as are those of all the other sumacs, and 
this is the most important point of differ¬ 
ence. 

Of the four other sumacs which grow 
with more or less abundance throughout 
the Middle and Eastern States, we need 
have no fear, as they are all harmless. In 
every instance the berries grow in dense 
clusters and are bright red. The leaves 
are in many pairs on the same petiole, 
with the single exception of the fragrant 
sumac (Rhus aromatica), which, like 
the poison ivy, has but three leaflets; but 
this need not in the least confuse one, as 


the shape of the leaves and the general 
characteristics of the plants are in no wise 
the same. 

There is a little gingle which I remem¬ 
ber having at some time read, which, 
concisely, if not very poetically, explains 
these differences, and which, if commit¬ 
ted to memory, will always serve to dis¬ 
tinguish the poisonous and non-poisonous 
sumacs; 

“Berries red 
Have no dread; 

Berries white 
Poisonous sight; 

Leaves three 
Quickly flee; 

Leaves three, with berries red, 
Fragrant sumac, have no dread.” 


IMPORTANT TOPICS OF HEALTH. 


FLIES AND TYPHOID. 

Science has given the housewife a 
strong reason in addition to the many 
good ones she already has for waging 
relentless and unremitting war upon the 
Musca domestica, otherwise called the 
house fly. Science has shown that this 
insect is one of the most ubiquitous and 
malignant disseminators of the deadly 
typhoid bacillus. Evidence on the point 
seems conclusive. 

In 1897 Celli inoculated animals with 
bacilli from flies. They were soon sick 
of typhoid fever. Typhoid epidemics rage 
in summer when flies are numerous. The 
frosts that kill the flies also stop the epi¬ 
demics. Typhoid epidemics are especial¬ 
ly common among large bodies of soldiers. 
They usually have been attributed solely 
to impure water. The commission that 


investigated the typhoid epidemics in the 
camps of the American army during the 
war with Spain, found that the water 
supplies were good. The commission con¬ 
cluded that the flies which swarmed in all 
the camps had deposited enormous 
quantities of bacilli in the soldiers’ hard 
tack and “sow belly,” and that this was 
the true explanation of their sickness. 
Those who investigated the typhoid epi¬ 
demics in the British camps during the 
Boer war arrived at a similar conclusion. 

The fly is notoriously one of the filthi¬ 
est of insects. It habitually feeds upon 
the foulest of organic matters. In mat¬ 
ters of this kind typhoid bacilli flourish 
most numerously. With its antennae, 
eyes, legs, wings, and entire body covered 
with bacilli collected from these substances 
the fly sails to the pantry where food is 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


411 


kept or to the table where it is being eaten. 
It lights' on the bread, proceeds to the 
meat, tests the fruit and vegetables, per¬ 
chance tumbles into the syrup. On every¬ 
thing it touches or passes near it deposits 
innumerable typhoid bacilli. It is in this 
way, according to science, that flies propa¬ 
gate typhoid. All who eat food that they 
have visited expose themselves to this 
disease, whether they get it or not. 

The practical deduction from these facts 
is that one of the best ways to prevent 
typhoid is to keep flies away from food. 
Shut them out with screens. Chase them 
out with a dishcloth, as the old fashioned 
housekeeper did. Lure them to death with 
sticky fly paper. Leave no food, cooked 
or uncooked, wet or dry, where they can 
get at it. Be especially vigilant to pre¬ 
vent them from buzzing over the dining 
table while a meal is being eaten. 

If flies were prevented from carrying 
bacilli to food, typhoid epidemics would 
become much less frequent and deadly. 

CARE OF THE EYES. 

Too strong a light is as great an evil 
as one too dim, and when reading, writ¬ 
ing or sewing the light, whether natural 
or artificial, should come from the left. 
It should never fall full in the face, but 
upon the work. 

Daylight is best when not sifted 
through curtains, and artificial light 
should be clear, steady, soft and white. 
The craze for colored lamp shades has 
injured many eyes. 

The eyes should never be steadily em¬ 
ployed by artificial light, especially after 
a day’s hard use, and to strain them in 
fading twilight or by reading in cars or 
trains is an injurious practice. 


SENSE OF SMELL. 

That human beings have not entirely 
lost this animal basis of judgment is 
proved by the fact we do tell ourselves 
very much of other people by the nose, 
often unconsciously. The blind distin¬ 
guish their friends by the smell of hand¬ 
kerchiefs or coats. Unconscious sensa¬ 
tions and unconscious judgments have 
their field. We know far more by smell 
than is supposed. Some classes have ap¬ 
parently become degraded in senses as 
well as habits, for their basis of social 
judgment is below that of the animals. 
Those who have had their senses keenly 
educated are accustomed to judge of per¬ 
sons by odors. Australian children 
possess the doglike sense of trailing'people 
by scent, and experiment reveals that this 
is to some degree present in everyone. 

VEGETARIANS. 

At least seven-tenths of the population 
of the globe never eat flesh meat. In 
India, China, Japan and adjacent coun¬ 
tries there are about 400,000,000 people— 
strong, active, healthy, longlived—who 
eat no flesh meat. In Europe are the 
peasants of Russia, the Corsican farmers, 
the Scotch Highlanders and other vege¬ 
tarian peoples, well developed physically 
and capable of great endurance. 

AN AID TO DIGESTION. 

A slice or two of pineapple after a 
meal is a great aid to digestion. Fresh 
pineapple juice contains a remarkably 
active digestive principle similar to the 
pepsin that is secreted by the human stom¬ 
ach. This digestive principle of the pine¬ 
apple is called “bromelin,” and its action 
upon proteids (that is albumen-like sub- 




412 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


stances) is so powerful that it will digest 
as much as 1,000 times its own weight 
within a few hours. Its digestive activity 
varies, as might be expected, according to 
the kind of albuminous material upon 
which it acts. Fibrin (which is the albu¬ 
minoid substance that causes blood to co¬ 
agulate) disappears entirely after a time. 
With the coagulated albumen of cooked 
eggs the digestive process is slow. Upon 
the albumen of lean meat the digestive 
principles of the pineapple first produce 
a pulpy, gelatinous mass, which com¬ 
pletely dissolves after a short time. When 
a slice of fresh pineapple is placed upon a 
raw beefsteak the surface of the steak 
gradually becomes gelatinous, owing to 
the digestive action of the pineapple 
juice. 

JAPANESE LESSONS ON HEALTH. 

The Japanese have taught Europeans 
and Americans a lesson and quenched in 
some degree the conceit of the Caucasian 
in his superior capacity to do all things. 
Even in the matter of diet, our long- 
cherished theory that the energy and vi¬ 
tality of the white man is largely due to 
the amount of animal food consumed 
must undergo revision. The Japanese 
are allowed to be among the very strong¬ 
est people on the earth. They are strong 
mentally and physically, and yet practical¬ 
ly they eat no meat at all. The diet which 
enables them to develop such hardy frames 
and such well-balanced and keen brains 
consists almost wholly of rice, steamed or 
boiled, while the better-to-do add to this 
Spartan fare fish, eggs, vegetables and 
fruit. For beverage they use weak tea 
without sugar or milk, and pure water, 
alcoholic stimulants being but rarely in¬ 


dulged in. Water is imbibed in what we 
should consider prodigious quantities— 
to an Englishman, indeed, the drinking of 
so much water would be regarded as mad¬ 
ness. The average Japanese individual 
swallows about a gallon daily in divided 
doses. 

The Japanese recognize the beneficial 
effects of flushing the system through the 
medium of the kidneys, and they also 
cleanse the exterior of their bodies to an 
extent undreamed of in Europe or in 
America. Another—and perhaps this is 
the usage on which the Japanese lay the 
greatest stress—is that deep, habitual, 
forcible inhalation of fresh air is an essen¬ 
tial for the acquisition of strength, and 
this method is sedulously practiced until it 
becomes a part of their nature. The Japa¬ 
nese have proved that a frugal manner of 
living is consistent with great bodily 
strength—indeed, is perhaps more so 
than the meat diet of the white man. As 
to the water-drinking habit, which is so 
distinctive a custom with them, it is 
probably an aid to keeping the system 
free from blood impurities, and might be 
followed with advantage in European 
countries, to a far greater extent than is 
at present the case. Hydropathy and ex¬ 
ercise seem to be the sheet anchors of the 
Japanese training regimen, and, judging 
from results, have been eminently satis¬ 
factory. 

NOTED PRECEPTS FOR LONG 
LIFE. 

1. Rise early, retire early, and fill your 
day with work. 

2. Water and bread maintain life; pure 
air and sunshine are indispensable to 
health; and do not worry. 



413 


NEWEST DISCOJ’ERIES IN 


3. Frugality and sobriety form the best 
elixir of longevity. 

4. Cleanliness prevents rust; the best- 
cared-for machines last the longest. 

5. Enough sleep repairs waste, and 
strengthens; too much sleep softens and 
enfeebles. 

6. To be sensibly dressed is to give 
freedom to one’s movements, and enough 
warmth to be protected from sudden 
changes of temperature. 

7. A clean and cheerful house makes a 
happy home. 

8. The mind is refreshed and in¬ 
vigorated by distractions and amusement: 
but abuse of them leads to dissipation, and 
dissipation to vice. 

9. Cheerfulness makes love of life, and 
love of life is half of health. On the 
contrary, sadness and discouragement 
hasten old age. 

AN AGED PHILANTHROPIST’S 
RULES FOR HEALTH. 

Dr. D. K. Pearsons, the well-known 
philanthropist of Chicago, on his eight¬ 
ieth birthday gave out the following rules 
for longevity: 

“No pies, no cakes, no pains, no aches. 

“Most men dig their graves with their 
teeth. N 

“If you overwork your liver it will 
soon tell on your brain. 

“Live like a farmer and you will live 
like a prince. 

“Men can live ten days without eating, 
but they can’t go without pure air for five 
minutes. 

“Don’t get angry and don’t get excited. 
Every time you fret you lose a minute of 
life. 

“If you catch a cold lose your quinine 
and eat an onion.” 


THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


THE MAZDAZNAN OR “WORSHIP 
OF LIGHT” PRECEPTS FOR 
LONG LIFE. 

More people die from overeating than 
from excessive drinking. 

Sin and desires that destroy come from 
indulgence in the appetites. 

Subjugate the flesh by fasting. This 
gives strength to the spiritual and kills 
the destructive desires. 

Control your thoughts. Foolish and 
wandering thoughts are like unassimilated 
food—only breed disease. 

Don t eat meat. Eat grains, fruits, 
nuts, bread of whole wheat, not made by 
fermented yeast or salt. 

Coffee from Arabia is permissible. Tea 
from violets, rose leaves, lavender, flax 
and barley is the right thing. 

Fresh air is of more benefit than food, 
for a man may go without food and live, 
but he cannot go without air. 

Don't drink malt or spirituous liquors, 
and water as sparingly as possible. Don’t 
smoke. 

Take long, deep breaths and exhala¬ 
tions. 

SCIENTIFIC PRECEPTS FOR 
HEALTH 

Mr. Fletcher, with Yale and Cam¬ 
bridge. England, university backing for 
his theories and experiments proving 
them sums up with the following five 
points the scientific essentials for health. 

1. Any one can live on one-third the 
amount of food usually eaten, and be 
healthy and vigorous. 

2. Only five hours' sleep are necessary. 

3. When food is thoroughly chewed 
the waste of digestion is reduced nine- 
tenths. 






414 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


4. The appetite indicates the need of 
the body and wants simple food. 

5. Since an important part of digestion 
is done in the mouth, thorough chewing 
is necessary. 

RULES FOR ATTAINING OLD AGE. 

Sir James Sawyer, an English phy¬ 
sician, has formulated the following nine¬ 
teen rules for prolonging life to 100 years : 

1. Eight hours' sleep. 

2. Sleep on your right side. 

3. Keep your bedroom window open 
all night. 

4. Have a mat to your bedroom door. 

5. Do not leave your bedstead against 
the wall. 

6. No cold bath in the morning, but a 
bath at the temperature of the body. 

7. Exercise before breakfast. 

8. Eat little meat, and see that it is 
well cooked. 

9. (For adults). Drink no milk. 

10. Eat plenty of fat, to feed the cells, 
which destroy disease germs. 

11. Avoid intoxicants, which destroy 
these cells. 

12. Daily exercise in the open air. 

13. Allow no pet animals in your liv¬ 
ing room. They are apt to carry about 
disease germs. 

14. Live in country if you can. 

15. Watch the three D's—drinking 
water, damp and drains. 

16. Have a change of occupation. 

17. Take frecjuent and short holidays. 

18. Limit your ambitions, and 

19. Keep your temper. 

HEALTH MAXIMS. 

A maxim is useful because of its readi¬ 
ness of application. The mind has to re¬ 


duce its conclusions to postulates before 
it can apply them to practice. 

1. The commercial value of a life lies 
solely in its productive period; the other 
periods are a burden upon this. 

2. This period'should be prepared for 
from infancy, protected in adult life and 
extended as long as possible into old age. 

3. Constitutional vigor is created 
mainly by proper food and proper hygiene 
in youth. 

4. No person over 40 years of age 
should subsist mainly on animal foods, 
which are very good in early life. The 
reason for this is contained in maxim 14. 
The elasticity of some of the most im¬ 
portant tissues in the body cannot be pre¬ 
served by a person over 40 years of age 
who continuously loads up the body with 
the waste products of nitrogenous foods 
in excess, even if he had the best food in 
youth. Fruits and cereal foods should be 
largely and generally used by all persons 
over 40 years of age. 

5. Nerves are exceedingly important. 
They grow best in the country. Let youth 
be passed as much as possible away from 
the crowded centres of population. 

6. Education may be misdirected, and 
may be overdone. A good machine may 
be ruined by making it too elaborate. A 
good knife may be rendered useless by 
sharpening it all away. 

7. Regular, moderate, physical exercise 
is essential, and is generally neglected. 

8. Do not make a burden of amuse¬ 
ments. 1 hey may, and often are, made 
worse than overwork or undue worry. 

9. Do not set an impossible ideal of 
life. It results in disappointment, and 
that ages. 







Chicago society going to the races on Derby Day. 
































416 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


10. Cultivate a serene mental attitude, 
and develop a capacity for deliberate en¬ 
joyment of whatever is at hand. The 
greatest pleasure often comes from little 
things easily and often overlooked. 

11. Avoid every excess. Do not over¬ 
work, overplay, overeat, overdrink or 
oversmoke, or allow yourself to become 
overinactive. 

12. Do not assume obligations that you 
cannot discharge. This is the secret not 

SECRETS OF 

Scientific rules discussed before the 
Royal College of Physicians of England, 
by the famous British scientist and phy¬ 
sician, Sir Herman Weber. 

What is the real secret of long life and 
how can a human being manage to live 
in the enjoyment of good health and 
spirits for a hundred years or more? 

This is the question which the famous 
British scientist and hygienist, Sir Her¬ 
man Weber, attempted to answer the other 
day in a highly interesting discourse to 
the Royal College of Physicians. The 
views of the noted physician are startling 
in their simplicity, and, at the same time, 
so clear and easy of comprehension that 
anybody can understand them. 

The same question when put to great 
statesmen, scientists, and others who have 
reached almost to the century mark of 
life has been answered in various ways. 

It was supposed that old and intelligent 
men would naturally have formulated 
some theory to account for the length of 
their lives. 

RULES OF THE FAMOUS. 

Von Moltke, at the age of 90, was still 
possessed of fine intellectual power and 


only of much physical but of much moral 
and mental disaster. 

13. Study your diet and your hours 
of labor, sleep and relaxation, and con¬ 
form to your constitutional requirements. 

14. Take particular precaution to pre¬ 
serve by daily actions the elasticity of all 
of the tissues. 

15. Maintain self-respect, avoid sordid¬ 
ness and gloom, and “grow old grace¬ 
fully.” 

LONG LIFE. 

remarkable vitality. When asked how he 
managed to live so long and in such ex¬ 
cellent health he replied: 

“By great moderation in all things and 
by regular out-of-door exercise.” 

Crispi, the famous Italian statesman, 
said: “Regularity and abstinence are the 
secrets of long life.” 

Neal Dow, the American apostle of 
temperance reform, replied, when asked 
this question: “Refrain from fretting.” 

Cornaro replied : “Extreme temperance 
in eating and drinking.” 

Dr. G. N. Pope, the aged Tamil scholar, 
said: “Be sure to have some great life 
work to do which holds you upon the earth 
for the accomplishment of a purpose and 
you will live.” 

These words from the lips of eminent 
men who lived to a wonderful old age 
are of intense interest, but they are not 
the cold and judicial advice of the 
scientist, who, however, does not disagree 
with them altogether. 

Sir Herman has worked out an in¬ 
genious plan for prolonging one's life, 
and simple as his advice may appear to be, 
it is based upon years of careful examina- 







NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


417 


tion, observation, research, experiment, 
and reading, and is, therefore, worth the 
trouble of learning and remembering. 

FIRST RULE: AVOID DISEASE. 

Sir Herman's first word of advice to 
those who would live long is to avoid dis¬ 
ease, especially such diseases as one is dis¬ 
posed to contract through inherited weak¬ 
ness. This is to be done by knowing 
one's own predisposition to disease and 
exercising the necessary care in occupa¬ 
tion, general habits, and diet that will in¬ 
definitely postpone the attack to which one 
is predisposed from birth. 

He next advises such care in diet and 
general habits of life as will defer as long 
as possible the hardening of the coats of 
the blood vessels, that generally comes on 
before its natural time, and other de¬ 
teriorations of bodily vigor that are the 
concomitants or equivalents of the physi¬ 
cal conditions of old age. In old age the 
tissues dry up and the joints stiffen. Keep 
your tissues moist, says Sir Herman, and 
your joints well oiled. 

The first thing needed to keep the tis¬ 
sues healthy and strong and the various 
organs in good working order is a certain 
quantity of exercise taken every day. 
Regularly taken exercise strengthens the 
heart, thereby causing that great organ 
to pump the fluids of the body to the re¬ 
motest corners and thereby improving nu¬ 
trition and causing all the other organs to 
do their natural work and to take a de¬ 
light, so to speak, in doing their natural 
work. This nutrition abundantly supplies 
the body with power and furnishes ma¬ 
terial for the combustion, which, when 
sufficiently strong, gives the body the 
ability to resist chills, which are the 
natural enemies of life. A prerequisite 


to the successful effect of exercise is 
oxygen. Hence, fresh air in plenty is the 
second needful thing. 

HOLIDAYS AND EXERCISE 
NECESSARY. 

Holidays, or days of rest, at least one 
in a week, are necessary for long life, 
according to Sir Herman’s theory. But 
he seems to insist upon regularity in exer¬ 
cise. Of exercise he advises two kinds. 
First, the most natural of all exercise— 
which is walking. The man who would 
live long should walk every day for at 
least one-half an hour, and that in all 
kinds of weather. The long liver must 
not be kept indoors by rain, snow, or 
wind. The regularly recurrent walk of 
half an hour must be taken, rain or shine, 
for this regularity of the thing is half of 
its virtue. “If I rest I rust," said Luther. 

But these inspirations, to be of lasting 
benefit, must be taken in a peculiar way. 
Lying on the back and rising to a sitting 
posture during inhalation or swinging the 
arms about, if the inhalation be taken 
standing, gives free play to a large num¬ 
ber of combinations of muscles, the action 
of which reacts on the various vital organs 
and imparts strength and elasticity to the 
whole body. This combination of muscu¬ 
lar movement, with the deep inspiration, 
has, says Sir Herman, the same effect as 
mountain climbing, which, as is notorious, 
is the most healthful, long life-giving kind 
of exercise known. 

VEGETARIANISM IS BEST. 

In the matter of food, Sir Herman’s 
recipe for longevity will strike the Ameri¬ 
can people in a weak spot. His most im¬ 
portant advice is refrainment from large 
quantities of meat and eggs. Meat or 




418 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


eggs, he says, when eaten in large quanti¬ 
ties or continuously every day for the 
three meals, or even for two meals, are 
as destructive to length of life as the 
regular and free consumption of alcohol. 
In fact, no matter what kind of food is 
taken, the quantity should be small. The 
human body can live and thrive and work 
hard on a surprisingly small quantity of 
nourishment. Great moderation in eat¬ 
ing is, therefore, one of the keys that un¬ 
lock the doors of long living. 

Drinking, too, should be regulated, 
especially in the matter of tea and coffee. 
Little tea and coffee will go a long way, 
according to the plan laid down by Sir 
Herman. Little alcohol, or none at all is 
better still, whereas tobacco is bad, al¬ 
though great temperance in these things, 
when they are used at all will prevent the 
shortening of life that comes of their free 
use. 

One of the strongest recommendations 
of the system is a liberal use of the brain. 
The brain must have exercise as well as 
the body. No matter how much the body 
is exercised, there can be no long life or 
healthy life if the brain is idle. That is 
why so many men of intellect or of affairs 
live to such old age. The brain, so says 
Sir Herman, must have exercise or it will 
die early, and the whole body will die with 
it. He therefore advises the man who 
would live to be quite old to find some 
subject that will interest his mind and de¬ 
vote himself to it with great energy. He 
advises fat and gouty idlers, who are 
afraid of death to study zoology, chem¬ 
istry, or some other science. Lord Salis¬ 
bury was one of the most enthusiastic 
chemists in England. Bismarck and Glad¬ 
stone, Crispi, and others were statesmen; 


Pope Leo XIII had the care of his great 
church on his mind; Darwin, Spencer, 
Huxley, Secchi, Dalton, and a hundred 
other scientists and pholosophers lived to 
an old age, although they were physically 
complaining almost their entire lives. 

In mental exercise Sir Herman advises 
variety. The more varied the intellectual 
pleasures of a man the longer will he 
live; that is, if his body is paid attention 
to; and if his body is cared for he will 
live to be old and in health also. 

SUMMARY OF THE RULES. 

In summing up the rules for producing 
longevity Sir Herman lays down the fol¬ 
lowing regime: 

Avoid discontentment and worry. 
Worry is one of the surest life shorteners 
known. 

Rise early and retire early. This is 
important, for it was practiced for long 
ages by the ancestors of civilized men and 
is a natural habit. 

Practice moderation in everything, 
especially in eating. 

Breathe pure air, getting plenty of 
oxygen with every inhalation. 

Take regular daily exercise. 

Do not sleep more than six, or, at most, 
more than seven hours. 

Exercise the brain every day. 

Bathe daily. 

Practice deliberate and careful control 
over all passions, especially over anger, 
which destroys more tissue than any other 
passion. 

Control nervous fear. Learn to be as 
unafraid as possible. 

If this rule of life were in general use 
Sir Herman is convinced that the length 
of human life would be immeasurably in¬ 
creased. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


419 


SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF RETAINING THE STRENGTH 

OF YOUTH. 


The clinical picture of approaching 
death is divided by Tessier into those 
structural degenerations involving, first, 
the heart and blood vessels; second, the 
lungs; third, the kidneys; fourth, the di¬ 
gestive organs, and fifth, the brain. 

First of the heart, which is now recog¬ 
nized to be the organ which plays the chief 
part in the ending of life. Before we 
knew much about the subject it was 
natural to infer that the heart was chiefly 
at fault, and the common phrase was often 
used of death by “heart failure,” one 
which we now know to be scientifically 
correct, but aforetime vaguely employed. 
Then discoveries were made that the 
arteries in the aged were nearly always 
diseased, and medical thinkers went so far 
as to assert that all cases of death in old 
age resulted from the hardening of the 
arteries. It is true that this is an accom¬ 
panying phenomenon in most instances, 
and, perhaps in all, but it is recognized to 
be not the most potent factor in a certain 
large proportion. 

What is to be said here is not meant for 
a guide to the aged individual by which 
he may be encouraged to form independ¬ 
ent judgments for himself, but rather to 
act as items of useful information, 
through which he can better interpret the 
statements and appreciate the importance 
of following the directions of his phy¬ 
sician. 

THE WARNING OF SHORT 
BREATH. 

The heart of a healthy old person has 
become fatigued in its structure through 


a decadence of its nerve supply. The pulse 
is rather quicker than during middle life;, 
it is more or less irregular and becomes in¬ 
creasingly so. In a healthy heart there is- 
however, a regular irregularity, a normal 
sequence of alterations in the rhythm and 
force which is only significant when 
studied by the trained physician. The 
phenomenon which is one of the most 
constant and inevitable, as the effects of 
age begin to make themselves felt, 
is shortness of breath on exertion. This 
has to do more with faults in the action of 
the circulation and the vasomotor nerves 
than in the lungs. The old man finds 
himself distressed in his breathing while 
undergoing a degree of exertion which 
aforetime would produce no noticeable ef¬ 
fects. The heart muscle is old, relaxed 
and softened and contracts imperfectly 
and readily shows exhaustion. This need 
not produce alarm, but if the condition 
rapidly increases it may be significant of 
some important change and should be re¬ 
ferred to the medical adviser. 

In fact, it cannot be repeated too often 
that the more constantly the aged person 
remains under observation of a wise phy¬ 
sician, the more safely it can be promised 
that he will live happily and long. There 
is a symptom which is most terrifying 
and frequently occurs in the aged, and 
that is a sudden agonizing chest pain, 
during which the sufferer, unless he be of 
unusual mental equipoise, feels that he 
shall instantly die. This may come on 
suddenly without previous warning and 
requires the best medical advice, but it 
almost always passes and may recur many 





420 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


times, and is capable of much relief. It 
may be a symptom of chronic myocardial 
degeneration. 

The lungs also, in most instances, share 
in the process of death. The changes 
which occur in the aged lung are de¬ 
generative and need have nothing to do 
with any previously disordered processes 
in them. Again it may happen that cer¬ 
tain changes common in old age take place 
and prove to be most distressing; the 
chief of these are asthma, chronic pneu¬ 
monia and bronchitis. Pneumonia in the 
aged is a very serious affection, and it is 
stated that the largest number of deaths 
in old people are caused or accompanied 
by acute broncho-pneumonia. 

THE MEANING OF SECOND 
CHILDHOOD. 

The digestive organs sometimes give 
way while the rest of the organism re¬ 
mains in fairly good condition. Sir Will¬ 
iam Thomson has written charmingly 
upon the digestive disorders of elderly 
folk, and it would be well for every old 
person to read his suggestive essays. Un¬ 
less care is observed in regulating the diet 
(and the chief point here is rather a re¬ 
duction in the amount than particulariz¬ 
ing as to the items of food taken), dis¬ 
tressing phenomena will constantly arise. 
Fortunately this is easily avoided, al¬ 
though not so readily cured. Sir William 
Thomson makes the assertion that the dis¬ 
appearance of the teeth is a plain indica¬ 
tion of the return to a second childhood, 
and therefore the food should be of such 
a character as may not require the assist¬ 
ance of the teeth in mastication. He ad¬ 
vises most wisely, although his recom¬ 
mendation cannot be taken literally, that 


the teeth be not replaced by artificial ones, 
for thereby is a peril lest more food be 
taken than the organism can dispose of. 

The fact that the various organs con¬ 
cerned in the elaboration of food share 
very early in the degenerative changes of 
age makes it clear that the character of 
the food taken should be so simple in kind 
that no great strain would be placed upon 
these atrophied organs. The gastric juice 
is secreted in less quantity, and so of the 
pancreatic, the biliary and the intestinal 
juices. The lessened quantity of bile 
makes for constipation and the formation 
of gallstones and impairs absorption, and 
assimilation is thus interfered with. The 
kidneys, the chief source of elimination of 
a most elaborate series of poisons, become 
enfeebled in their action, and hence should 
not be overtaxed by either the quantity or 
the quality of the work they are called 
upon to perform. Finally, the brain may 
be the part which gives way most promi¬ 
nently, and then we may find hemor¬ 
rhages into its structure, a softening be¬ 
gins, and alteration in mentality, which 
points the way to more remote and serious 
changes. 

It is a matter of common observation 
that in some families senile changes occur 
much more early than in others, and yet 
there may be little of degenerative change 
apparent or probable because of the vigor 
of the individual. As the gradual steps 
of growth lead to development, so does 
the phase of existence called senescence 
merge insidiously toward the ending 
called death, through a progressive and 
insensible diminution in all the organic 
activities. Death should be regarded as 
a normal function. Ordinarily it is free 





NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 421 


from pain, and hence should be free from 
sadness. 

FACTS ABOUT OBESITY. 

Excessive fatness, or polysarcia, is not 
confined to advancing years; it is ob¬ 
served at all ages; but the quality of the 
accumulation in early years differs from 
that seen in late middle life. During the 
earlier years excessive gain in weight is 
usually the product of full digestive 
capacity, with a somewhat lessened elimi¬ 
native power, and can be met by reduction 
in diet and active exercises, and is, as a 
rule, controllable. With that form of 
obesity which is not altogether manage¬ 
able in young people or those on the hither 
side of middle life, we have nothing to do, 
except in so far as we should discuss this 
condition and its progress when encoun¬ 
tered in later years. 

It is always a dangerous thing for per¬ 
sons to undertake their own treatment for 
obesity if they make use of drugs, because 
great harm can be done; it may be irre¬ 
trievable. There is no objection, however, 
to moderating the diet, increasing exercise 
and, above all, to employing systematized 
physical training for the purpose of im¬ 
proving elasticity in all the tissues. It 
is only safe to do so under medical advice. 

When we have to do with the fat ane¬ 
mic person vastly more care must be 
used. The heart in these cases is likely to 
be infiltrated by fat and the muscular fibers 
clogged and inelastic, and must be taught 
slowly to regain their contractile vigor. 
At first, climbing stairs under direction 
is about as much as can be attempted, and 
any house will serve, merely regulating 
the number of steps walked up and down 
(both being of benefit) and the rate of 
speed carefully specified. 


SPECIAL GENERAL DIRECTIONS 
IN HEALTH REQUIRE¬ 
MENTS. 

Among other circumstances influencing 
the duration of life heredity is of great 
influence. Those whose ancestors have 
lived to great ages have a good chance of 
longevity, while those whose parents and 
blood relations have died early have most¬ 
ly inherited a tendency to short lives, yet 
it is possible by judicious arrangement of 
the manner of living to increase the dura¬ 
tion of their lives, especially by counter¬ 
acting the tendencies of which their short¬ 
lived ancestors have died. 

EATING AND DRINKING. 

There should be moderation of eating 
and drinking, especially in regard to meat 
foods. The rule of moderation applies to 
the whole life, but the necessity for it is 
increased in old age, when the organs and 
tissues are able to take up only a much 
smaller amount of nourishing material 
than in youth. Few people have an idea 
of the small amount of food required in 
old age and the fear of many persons that 
by eating little they may lose strength is 
entirely unfounded. 

As to the food accessories, alcohol is 
quite unnecessary for most persons and 
ought to be avoided entirely, excepting 
in the smallest quantities. 

As the nervous system exercises great 
power on all the functions of the body, it 
ought to be kept in a healthy condition by 
regular mental work and judicious occu¬ 
pations. The fear often expressed that 
steady mental work is likely to wear out 
the brain too soon is unfounded. The 
wearing theory is wrong, as well for 
mental as physical work, both of which 
may be continued in old age. 





422 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Well directed mental work assists the 
nutrition of the brain in a similar way 
as action of a muscle promotes its nutri¬ 
tion. Work is the best preventative of 
mental depression and the most powerful 


promoter of a cheerful mental frame, a 
contented mind, sympathy and hope, 
which exercise a highly beneficial effect 
on every function of the body. 


AUTO-HYPNOTISM AND SELF-SUGGESTION 
AS NATURE’S CURE. 


You can easily cure your insomnia by 
auto-hypnotism, unless it be a case of 
too long standing. Of course, the mere 
mention of the word “hypnotism” sug¬ 
gests an ocean of mysteries. Yet, you 
probably hypnotize yourself a dozen times 
daily without knowing it. Of course, 
you do not put yourself involuntarily to 
sleep a dozen times a day. Sleep is not a 
necessary accompaniment of hypnosis. 
But you can make yourself sleep, as well 
as do many other things not listed in the 
routine of your natural inclinations. 

You will rise in the morning at an hour 
which you have impressed upon your in¬ 
voluntary mind before going to bed. This 
phenomenon can work both ways. Hence 
you can train yourself to fall asleep at a 
moment which you have kept fixed in your 
mind during the day; not the first time 
you try it, perhaps, but you can soon train 
yourself to do it. 

Here is a practical illustration of the 
force of voluntary auto-suggestion : Stand 
erect with your eyes closed and concen¬ 
trate your attention for a few moments 
on the sensation of falling backward. You 
will begin immediately to sway in that 
direction. The same force with which 
you here unconsciously contracted the 
muscles of your legs and back will assist 
in taking the blood from your brain and 
inducing sleep. 


HYPNOTIC LABORATORY. 

% 

A hypnotic laboratory at home can be 
fitted up by pressing into service only the 
ordinary articles of domestic use. There 
are no end of needless whirly-gigs sold to 
induce the hypnotic state. These mechani¬ 
cal aids are valuable for concentrating at¬ 
tention, fatiguing the eyes or deceiving 
the superstitious subject. But your bed¬ 
room can be converted into a fully 
equipped laboratory by such simple acqui¬ 
sitions as a candle, a hand mirror, a lead- 
pencil, a bottle, a stick of crayon, a sheet 
of wrapping paper and such common 
articles as are counted among the sundries 
of the humblest abode. 

Place a lighted candle behind a round 
bottle of colored glass—an ordinary green 
bottle—and gaze at the spot where the 
light focuses on the opposite side. Let 
the room be dark. Previously disrobe and 
be in bed ready for sleep. Concentrate 
your stare upon the light spot on the bot¬ 
tle and in time your eyes will grow so 
fatigued as to naturally close. The head 
should be high, as sleep is produced by 
the blood leaving the brain. When the 
head is elevated gravity aids to drain off 
such of the vital fluid as is not needed to 
nourish the brain during sleep. The bot¬ 
tle will serve as a screen against die glare 
of the candle. The latter can be cut short 
in order that it may burn itself out soon 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 423 


after sleep ensues. Should you be nervous 
about letting the candle burn while you 
sleep, set it upright in a china plate, stick¬ 
ing it fast with a few drops of its hot 
grease. Then when it dies out ; t can do 
no harm. 

TO MAKE A HYPNOTIC EYE. 

Draw a large picture of the human eye 
upon white paper, using a soft black 
crayon. Hang the paper where the rays 
of your candle or night lamp will illumi¬ 
nate it. Stare at this eye for a quarter 
of an hour, if need be. Try to refrain 
from winking. If the eye be sufficiently 
staring in its aspect it will finally “stare 
you out.” Your eyes will grow fatigued 
and you will fall asleep. 

Make a cone about eighteen inches long 
out a sheet of white paper. Place the 
large end to your eyes and stare at the can¬ 
dle through it. Having maintained your 
stare thus for about three minutes, close 
your eyes. You will still see the outlines 
of the candle. Gaze at this image steadily 
—that is, continue to endeavor to see it, 
and after it has disappeared imagine that 
you see it until it reappears. This ex¬ 
periment frequently induces sleep in a 
very short time. 

Stare into the pupils of your own eyes 
reflected in a mirror placed conveniently 
upon a stand or table close by your bed 
and at a distance of ten inches from your 
face. Stare until your piece of candle 
burns out. Even before that time your 
eves will probably be closed in sleep. 

Hold one end of a long lead-pencil be¬ 
tween your teeth and allow your gaze to 
run up and down its polished surface until 
the eves close of their own accord. The 
same effect can be produced in the dark 


by staring at any imaginary spot at the 
tip of your nose. Touch your forehead 
with your finger. Then roll your eyes up 
under your lids and imagine that you are 
looking through the top of your head at 
this particular spot. Do this for three 
minutes and drowsiness will probably 
cause the eyes to mall and the lids to re¬ 
main closed in natural repose. One 
method recommended by a hypnotist is 
to close your eyes and count the bright 
spots coming and going on your eyelids. 
Anyone can see such spots if he closes his 
eyes. 

EXERCISE THE IMAGINATION. 

Close your eyes and imagine that you 
are looking at the ceiling. Having done 
this for a moment, make yourself believe 
that you are looking into the corners of 
the ceiling, one after the other, in order. 
One hypnotist recommends the following : 
Close your eyes. Drop your head forward 
upon your chest. Then imagine diat you 
are looking up and down your spine, from 
behind. 

Imagine that you are counting the num¬ 
ber of bricks on the corner of a high build¬ 
ing. Commence at the bottom and count 
up. If you reach the top before falling 
asleep, then start at the top and work 
downward. The eyes must be closed dur¬ 
ing this experiment, which is recom¬ 
mended by a teacher of hypnotism. This 
same authority teaches his subjects to pre¬ 
tend to sleep by taking a comfortable po¬ 
sition and snoring lightly. This, he says, 
tends to encourage sleep, the same effect 
being produced by trying to yawn again 
and again, thus encouraging natural 
yawning. Of course, you must be in a 
comfortable position, ready for sleep. 



424 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


during these tests. It is also recommended 
to slowly turn over the leaves of a book, 
imagining while you do that you see the 
word “sleep" in large, black letters, 
printed on each page. You will turn them 
more and more slowly and finally cease, 
unconsciously, and fall asleep. 

FATIGUING CONSCIOUSNESS. 

With eyes closed, imagine that you are 
stretching a piece of elastic two inches 
long. Go through the actual movements 
again and again until you have stretched 
it as far as your arms will reach. One 
hypnotist encourages sleep in his patients 
by placing a cork between their teeth and 
causing them to bite hard on it for a min¬ 
ute or two. He also instructs them to 
shut their eyes and imagine that lemon 
juice is being dropped into their mouths, 
a drop at a time. This causes an increase 
in saliva and it is claimed produces a 
soporific effect at the same time. 

If these methods fail he requires the 
subject to roll his tongue back in the 
mouth and hold it steadily by pressing it 
against the palate. It is also claimed that 
sleep can be induced by rolling a small 
rubber ball or large marble between the 
hands and imagining that you can see it 
roll. A more common method is to in¬ 
struct the subject to breathe deeply and 
rapidly “sixty-three” times, bearing the 
idea in mind that the sixty-third breath 
will find him asleep. 

In daylight laboratory tests a physician 
who employs hypnotism for therapeutic 
purposes gives his subjects a pencil and a 
pad of blank note paper and instructs them 
to write the word “sleepy” very slowly 
“thirty-three” times. They are told to 
close their eyes for a moment after writing 


the word each time. When they have 
written the word thirty-three times, and 
if still awake, they are to sit with eyes 
closed. 

All of these methods are actually pre¬ 
scribed by practical hypnotists. Even the 
most powerful specialists practicing this 
science resort to such preliminary means 
for inducing sleep. Any of the above 
methods can be applied by one’s self. 

INDUCING SLEEP IN OTHERS. 

Others, more interesting, can better be 
applied to a second person. Most any wife 
or mother can induce sleep in her wake¬ 
ful husband or child by employment of 
amateur hypnotism, unless his insomnia 
be acute. 

Of course no levity must be shown, lest 
lack of confidence result, and this will he 
fatal if present in either the operator or 
the subject. “Anyone willing to try can 
make a hypnotist of himself, if gifted with 
ordinary tact, determination and judg¬ 
ment,” a successful master of this art once 
told the writer by way of introduction to a 
lesson in hypnotism. 

Take the photograph of some striking 
person unknown to your wakeful subject. 
'Fell him that it is the portrait of one of 
the greatest hypnotists in the world, and 
that if he will gaze into its eyes he will 
feel their influence and soon drop into a 
sound sleep, lasting until morning. This 
is a method sometimes used in staee 
seances, and many subjects will follow the 
suggestion at once. 

The sleep having been induced you can 
tell your subject that when you arouse him 
in the morning you will present him with 
a card; that he will read what is written 
thereon, and that ever afterward he can 


















426 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


make himself sleep by gazing at the same 
card, if undressed and in bed. Then pre¬ 
pare a card reading something like this: 
“Ten minutes after reading this you will 
drop into a sound sleep, and sleep just as 
long as you wish.” “Show him this card 
at any future time and he will carry out 
the suggestion,” says the hypnotist who 
devised the test. 

Another method recommended is this: 
“Require your subject to hold both of his 
hands, backs facing him, about six inches 
in front of his face. He must then stare 
at each of his finger nails in turn while 
he counts ten slowly. He should com¬ 
mence with the left little finger and work 
to the right. A good subject will seldom 


keep his eyes open until he has gazed at 
the whole ten nails.” 

Some professional operators employ a 
little electric lamp, which when grasped 
tightly in the hand is lighted, but which 
goes out when the hand’s grip is relaxed. 
The subject is given one of these to hold, 
being instructed to grasp it firmly and 
rivet his attention upon the bright light. 
The hypnotist, standing over the subject, 
suggests that the latter’s eyes are growing 
tired and that with this effect the hand 
will relax; that finally when the light goes 
out the eyes will close in sleep. Of course, 
the hand relaxes from fatigue. The light 
extinguishes itself and the subject really 
sleeps as a result of the suggestion. 


QUACKERY IN MIRACLES OF HEALING. 


Quacks have two advantages over regu¬ 
lar practitioners. In the first place, all 
the quack’s successes are trumpeted 
abroad by his grateful patients, while of 
his failures the world hears nothing, since 
no one likes to confess the silliness— 
when it has been shown to be silliness— 
of having had recourse to a charlatan. 
Secondly, only those have recourse to a 
charlatan who implicitly believe in him, 
and this implicit belief is itself the chief, 
or even sometimes the sole factor in the 
cure of many complaints. 

There recently appeared in the papers 
this striking example of the power of the 
mind over the body, which, I think, lets 
in light upon a multitude of “miracles,” 
attested by overwhelming evidence, yet 
doubted because they were attributed to 
supernatural power. “At i a. m. on July 
14 Pat Shay, who for four years past has 
suffered from paralysis of both legs, com¬ 


pelling him to walk on crutches, was drag¬ 
ging himself to the lodging house where 
he was staying near the Dials, when he 
saw smoke helching forth from a bird and 
dog fancier’s shop in St. Andrew street. 
Promptly Shay gave the alarm, and in 
quick time a man, who happened to be 
close by, answered to the call. Between 
them they managed to burst in the door. 
Then, in his intense excitement, the cripple 
forgot his infirmity, and, throwing away 
his crutches, rushed with his companion 
up the burning stairs. Seizing an infant 
boy whom he found in a room, Mr. Shay 
rushed downstairs with him. 

“ ‘YV hen the police and firemen arrived,’ 
said Mr. Shay in his account of the mat¬ 
ter, T was knocked over in the struggle 
just after I had brought the bov down. 
Some one standing by who saw me helped 
me up. saying, “There’s your crutches.” 
“I don’t want the crutches,” I answered, 



NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 427 


and neither did I. I could walk without 
them. I saw the finish of the fire, and 
then went home, carrying the crutches 
under my arm. I can hardly realize it 
myself. It's nothing short of a miracle.’ 

NOTABLE INSTANCES FROM 
HISTORY. 

Few events in history are so well at¬ 
tested as the miracles wrought upon the 
tombstone of Deacon Francois de Paris 
in the churchyard of St. Medard, and yet 
they were derided by the Jesuits, because 
they were Jansenist miracles; by the 
Protestants, because they were Catholic 
miracles; by the doctors, because they 
were quackery; and by the scientific, be¬ 
cause they were assumed to be super¬ 
natural. Yet medical men and men of 
science, Protestant, Catholic, and Jesuit, 
would one and all have admitted the evi¬ 
dence for some of the most startling of 
these miracles to be overwhelming if their 
creed, or calling, or training had not pre¬ 
judiced them against all evidence. The 
tombstone not only cured neurotics but 
inspired the convulsionaires that stood or 
lay upon it with supernatural eloquence, 
or knowledge, or endurance. 

At last, through the influence of the 
Jesuits, and by royal decree, the church¬ 
yard was closed. This,' however, only 
changed the venue of the miracles, since 
a few grains of earth from the grave suf¬ 
ficed to produce all the phenomena in 
whatever place the convulsionaires As¬ 
sembled together for a seance. Today 


doctors and men of science admit the phe¬ 
nomena, but attribute them to hypnotism; 
but hypnotism itself, under its original 
name of mesmerism, was laughed to scorn 
only a generation since by doctors and 
men of science. Ultimately they will come 
to admit that hypnotism, clairvoyance, 
etc., are all alike manifestations of some 
mode of interaction of mind upon mind, 
as natural as wireless telegraphy. 

IMAGINATION MAY KILL OR 
CURE. 

Imagination is quite as effective to kill 
as to cure. I remember a year or two 
since reviewing a book by a medical expert 
in mental disease, who quoted without 
comment the following monstrous case 
of scientific homicide: Two physicians 
walking and talking together in the out¬ 
skirts of Edinburg stopped to illustrate 
the subject of their discussion experi¬ 
mentally upon a laborer who was working 
in a field by the road. The senior 
doctor, who was so famous in 
Edinburg as to be known to the laborer, 
thus addressed him: “My good man, 
you’ve no business to be at work, or to be 
out, or to be anywhere but in bed. Allow 
me to examine you.” Having looked at 
his tongue, felt his pulse, and sounded 
with a stethoscope his lungs, the doctor 
shook his head ominously and ordered the 
man to go home and to bed forthwith. 
The man, who was in perfect health, went 
home and to bed—from which he never 
rose. He was dead within a week. 


CAUSE OF DEATH FROM OLD AGE. 

There is a disease to which all of us life." This infirmity, old as man, develops 
must in some degree submit if we reach slyly among the histological elements con- 
old age—arteriosclerosis, the “rust of stituting the walls of the arterial vessels, 



428 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


and leads to the physical decay of our 
most delicate organs. 

Arteriosclerosis is characterized by a 
circumscribed or diffused thickening of 
the arterial walls, and it forms in the 
great arterial trunks more or less numer¬ 
ous plates, isolated or confluent, frequent¬ 
ly cartilaginous in appearance and in¬ 
filtrated with calcareous salts, among 
which those of phosphate of lime and 
lime have the principal place. In the 
small arteries and in the capillaries the 



A. Decaying Artery. 

B and C. Rusting out of the veins. 


sclerositic process may reach the point 
where it transforms the walls into a 
fibrous and compact tissue which produces 
the sensation to touch of a rigid cord. 
If we except the gravest forms of the 
trouble, it appears that arteriosclerosis 
leads to a loss of activity in the great 
arteries and to a diminution in the caliber 
and occasionally even to the obliteration 
of their last and finest ramifications. 

Two sorts of causes intervene in this 
disease, on one hand being ranged chronic 


poisonings and on the other the age of 
the body and the mistreatment of the ar¬ 
terial walls by overwork. We can there¬ 
fore conclude that arteriosclerosis is a dis¬ 
ease universally present among people of 
a certain age and difficult to avoid. 

As we said above the deposits of cal¬ 
careous salts, and particularly of phos¬ 
phate of lime—a composition insoluble in 
distilled water, but soluble in an aqueous 
solution of chloride of sodium, of phos¬ 
phate of soda, or of phosphate of mag¬ 
nesia—constitute the principal factor of 
arteriosclerosis. Now Bunge, who dem¬ 
onstrated the richness of young mammals 
in chloride of sodium, also showed that 
with age this reserve of salt diminished, 
and it is therefore natural to suppose that 
arteriosclerosis is the natural consequence 
of the insufficiency of chloride of sodium 
in the organic liquids. In fact, the treat¬ 
ment conceived by Trunecek to remedy 
this insufficiency has given encouraging 
results. 

The inorganic serum of Trunecek is ob¬ 
tained by dissolving in distilled water the 
different salts composing the mineral part 
of blood serum, but in proportions ten 
times greater than normal, the formula 
being sulphate of soda 0.44, sulphate of 
potash 0.40, chloride of sodium 4.92, 
phosphate of soda 0.15, carbonate of soda 
0.21, distilled water 100.00. 

WHY OLD AGE KILLS. 

The few scientific men who have earn¬ 
estly pursued this interesting phenomenon 
of senile death are agreed that most ani¬ 
mals and reptiles which live to great ages 
are capable of discarding their old skins 
or shells and that they become rejuven¬ 
ated after assuming those covering.' which 





























NEWEST DISCOJ'ERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 429 


are not popularly supposed to be vital to 
the wearer. It is a fact, explain the sci¬ 
entists, that the skin, shell, or hide of all 
creatures is the final repository for the 
waste of the system. Here is accumu¬ 
lated all of those substances not necessary 
to the subsistence of the creature which 
consumed them, or not assimilated by the 
active organisms of the body. In these 
castoff skins, shells, and hides of creatures 
most noted for longevity, there lie, ac¬ 
cording to good authorities, all of those 
wastes which the healthy system should 
exclude, and in them are contained those 
influences which make for an untimely 
death unless the vehicle is sloughed off, 
discarded, or renovated. 

E. J. Kibblewhite, a noted English sci¬ 
entist, addressing himself to this phase of 
the question of human longevity, says: 

“Ninety-five per cent of the organic 
matter we take into our bodies, as food, 
remains therein, in combination with sul¬ 
phur and five per cent of mineral matter 
—sodium chloride, silica, calcium phos¬ 
phate, carbonate, and traces of iron and 
lead. These build up the body, up to a 
certain age—more or less satisfactorily, 
as we feed, or as our inherited constitu¬ 
tions enable us to assimilate the food we 
take. Beyond that age, they accumulate 
in quantities which the body cannot dis¬ 
pose of: and all ordinary attempts to re¬ 
move them fail, just as the careless en¬ 
gineer fails who does nothing but pour 
oil into his engine clogged up with dirt. 

LIFE’S ENGINE CLOGGED BY 
WASTE. 

“Dissolve this dead waste out of the 
body, and the blood will do its work again 
effectually, renovating the living parts as 


in youth. Otherwise it goes on accumu¬ 
lating, gradually blocking up the drain¬ 
pipes of the body, and hindering the ex¬ 
cretion of waste material that the healthy 
skin action of youth promotes. Hence, 
as men grow old their skins gradually 
harden, and become like parchment, filled 
with the indurated cement-like deposit 
which can be felt if you pass your hand 
over the flesh of an old man. Such a 
man having escaped the ordinary diseases 
of humanity, most of which are merely 
the quicker results of the same thing, 
dies, as we say, of ‘old age.’ 

“That man ought not to die, if we can 
clean him and set him going again, just 
as we can a well-made and well-preserved 
watch or engine, the moving parts of 
which are still well preserved, and which 
are simply clogged by dirt. The man's 
moving parts are good. We repeatedly 
read the statement by medical men at in¬ 
quests of such that ‘all the organs seemed 
perfectly healthy.’ Such men die because 
a slight cold or some similar accident 
stops the engine, which, if it had not been 
fouled throughout by waste, and its ex¬ 
haust sealed up. would have overcome the 
temporary stoppage. 

ACID RENOVATES HUMAN SKIN. 

“Sixteen years ago, after a good deal 
of previous inquiry had been devoted to 
the subject, my attention was directed to 
the use of a glacial acetic acid, solid at 50 
degrees, as a means of dissolving the dead 
waste out of the skin. I found that in the 
proportion of three parts of the acid to 
one of water for the legs and, arms, and 
five parts of the acid to one of water for 
the more tender parts of the body, it dis¬ 
solved out the waste clogging the skin, 



430 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


bringing it away, till the renovated skin 
below was like that of a child. 

“My method was, after the hot bath, 
before retiring at night, to shampoo the 
body vigorously with the acid and water 
by means of a small sponge for ten min¬ 
utes or so, till the flesh tingled, and then 
to get into bed still damp. I found in my 
own case, and in that of others, that this 
treatment cured gout, and banished all the 
aches and pains of fatigue, as if by magic. 
In the morning I stood the feet, with my 
socks on, in a shallow dish with just 
enough of the acid and water therein to 
soak the soles of the socks, put on my 
boots, and went about my business. In 
a few weeks my feet were totally freed 
from the hardened skin which gathers on 
the feet of those who do much walking, 
and anything like a corn or callus disap¬ 
peared most agreeably. Any one who 
follows my example intelligently will de¬ 
rive similar benefit. 

HOPES TO PROLONG VIGOROUS 
LIFE. 

“I do not think the treatment would be 
of any use to a man already smitten with 
any organic disease. He is booked. But 
I do believe that the man who is still 
otherwise healthy—who is going to live 
till he dies of ‘old age,’ may prolong life 
in renewed vigor considerably. I think, 
too, that many more would benefit if re¬ 
course were had to the method in earlier 
life. 

“I am still carefully pursuing my ex¬ 
periments. Till recently, though con¬ 
vinced of the reality of the results ob¬ 
tained, I could not but regard them as in 
some degree empirical. But the discov¬ 
eries of the properties of radium and kin¬ 


dred radiating substances seem to me to 
afford a clew which I am trying to fol¬ 
low, which I am hopeful may lead to still 
better things. I started sixteen years ago, 
and it is possible that others who avail 
themselves of it may arrive independently 
at other results even more beneficial than 
I think I have attained.” 

NATURE’S ATTEMPTS SEEN IN 
ODD CASES. 

There are recorded cases of old men 
and women who have enjoyed, for no 
obvious reason, the return of physical 
youth in one way or another, though 
never in a complete or symmetrical man¬ 
ner. One toothless old man, having 
reached the age of 80, began the process 
of teething as in early childhood, and in 
the course of a year developed a mouthful 
of strong, sound teeth. Baldheaded per¬ 
sons of great age have experienced the 
sudden and unaccountable growth of 
luxuriant hair, and there have been in¬ 
stances in which, after reaching middle 
age, men and women have resumed 
growth, gaining in stature long after such 
processes are supposed to have ceased. 

It is the theory of many doctors that 
these cases are evidences of isolated ef¬ 
forts of healthy human nature to throw 
off the waste accumulations of the system 
and that, if the process could be amplified 
so as to reach all parts of the body in 
which superfluous matter is assembled the 
life of the otherwise healthy subject 
might be prolonged indefinitely, or, at 
least, until some organic ailment had fas¬ 
tened upon the body. In other words, 
there is a growing faith among earnest 
scientific inquirers that the business of 
eliminating waste deposits may involve 



NEWEST DISCOl'ERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


431 


the secret of prolonging life, since there 
seems to be no cause except these menac¬ 
ing accumulations why old persons, whose 
vitals are neither imperfect nor worn out, 
should die. 

AVERAGE LENGTH OF LIFE AT 
DIFFERENT PLACES. 

The pitiless logic of percentages, as 
applied to vital statistics, falls short of ac¬ 
counting for one fact in the census reports 
—the longevity of residents of the few 
remaining territories of the country. 

Of ioo.ooo persons in the population 
of the average American community, tak¬ 
ing the whole country through, there is 
just one which reaches or exceeds the age 
of ioo. As the census computers pro¬ 
saically express it. “99,999 die before that 
time.” One in 100,000 is, therefore, the 
percentage of centenarians in the United 
States, but in Arizona it is 10—ten times 
as high as in the rest of the country—and 
in New Mexico it is 9—nine times as high 
as in the other portions of the United 
States. 

Some States, Arkansas, Minnesota, 
Utah. Wyoming and Idaho, have no cen¬ 


tenarians. Some States, Florida, Cali¬ 
fornia, New Hampshire, South Carolina 
and Vermont, have a high rate of cen¬ 
tenarians—three times as large as the 
average in the other States, but much 
below the figures of Arizona and New 
Mexico. 

There are few centenarians in New 
England, but the number of persons be¬ 
tween the ages of 75 and 100 there are 
more than in any other section of the 
United States, and the two New England 
States which are most noted on account 
of their great number of old inhabitants 
are Vermont and Maine. Massachusetts 
has a considerable number, but the people 
of Massachusetts are generally of a more 
progressive character than those of the 
farming districts of Vermont and Maine, 
and urban life is not generally conducive 
to longevity. 

The large number of centenarians in 
the Territories is to be ascribed, probably, 
to favorable climatic conditions, for both 
Arizona and New Mexico enjoy celebrity 
as beneficial in pulmonary ailments. The 
question of territorial organization has 
probably nothing to do with it. 


“ GROW FOOD.” 

DISCOVERY OF A SUBSTANCE THAT INCREASES SIZE 

OF ANIMALS. 


Yolk of egg contains a substance called 
“lecithin,” which, as has been newly dis¬ 
covered. is, in the language of the Ger¬ 
man scientists, a veritable “grow-stuff.” 
Fed to human beings or other animals, it 
has a marked tendency to accelerate de¬ 
velopment of flesh-tissue and bony struc¬ 
ture. For many years past St. Bernard 
pups reared for exhibitions at shows have 


been systematically stuffed with eggs to 
increase their size. but. though the proc¬ 
ess was notably effective, nobody suspect¬ 
ed why. The reason lay simply in the 
lecithin contained in the yolks. 

SOME EXPERIMENTS. 

Dr. H. W. Wiley, the government’s 
chief chemist, and his assistant, Dr. Max- 




432 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


well, have performed some elaborate ex¬ 
periments with the “grow-stuff.” So, 
likewise, have Dr. Koch, of the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago, and Dr. Danilewsky, 
of Paris, who have utilized many kinds of 
animals, from frogs to chickens, in their 
investigations. They found that puppies, 
fed with regular doses of lecithin not 
only grew faster than pups reared in the 
ordinary way, but were stronger, more 
lively, developed thicker and silkier hair 
and seemed to be perceptibly more intel¬ 
ligent. In order to avoid error as far as 
possible, the puppies were invariably 
taken from the same litters, some being 
dosed and others not, and, apart from the 
special treatment, were brought up under 
exactly the same conditions. 

Dr. Danilewsky found that tadpoles 
dosed with lecithin grew much faster than 
pollywogs which did not have the treat¬ 
ment, while frogs’ eggs placed in water 
containing one fifteen-hundredth part of 
the substance gained in fifty-four days 300 
per cent more in weight than other eggs 
of the same batch in ordinary water. In 
other words, the lecithin eggs grew four 
times as fast. Similar results were ob¬ 
tained by Prof. Shinkishi Hatai, of the 
University of Chicago. 

ON RATS AND GUINEA PIGS. 

Dr. Koch tried the “grow-stuff” upon 
guinea pigs and rats. Having boiled the 
lecithin in distilled water to make it ster¬ 
ile, he administered it to the animals 
through the mouth and by injecting it 
beneath the skin, in different series of ex¬ 
periments. The animals under trial were 
invariably of the same litter, were fed on 
the same kind of food (a plain vegetable 
diet of corn, carrots and cabbage), and 


were weighed every two days. Taking 
an average, it was found that the lecithin 
rats grew 60 per cent faster than the rats 
reared in the ordinary way, and it was 
about the same with the guinea pigs. 

The results obtained by Dr. Koch in¬ 
dicated that the “grow-stuff” worked bet¬ 
ter when given by the mouth than when 
administered hypodermically. This ought 
to be considered fortunate, inasmuch as 
children, if their growth is to be encour¬ 
aged by such means, will find it much 
easier to swallow the doses than to take 
them in the other way. Dr. Danilewsky 
found that doses given once in five hours 
served the purpose with young chickens, 
the development of which was markedly 
accelerated by the medicine, but as yet the 
trials have not been extended to babies, 
and much remains to be learned in regard 
to the best methods of treatment for 
growing boys and girls. 

A BRAIN FOOD. 

One of "the most interesting conclu¬ 
sions drawn by Dr. Danilewsky is that 
lecithin acts upon the brain. Indeed, it 
seems to be actually a brain food. Its in¬ 
fluence as a stimulant is exerted directly 
upon the blood, which is thereby caused 
to deposit the materials that build the 
bones and other tissues of the body. Of 
course, all the material that goes to make 
growth is originally in solution in the 
blood, from which it is deposited in the 
form of bone, muscle-tissue, etc. If, 
while growth is still going on, the rate 
of deposition can be accelerated, the 
human being or other animal will grow 
faster. Apparently, this is the way in 
which the lecithin works, by stimulating 
normal growth. 





NEWEST DISCOl'ERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


433 


PHOSPHORUS. 

Lecithin is defined by Dr. H. W. Wilev 
as a fat in which phosphorus has replaced 
part of the hydrogen. In simple lan¬ 
guage, it is an organic compound of phos¬ 
phorus. While egg-yolks contain an ex¬ 
traordinary percentage of it, it is found 
also in seeds, wherein it is stored to fur¬ 
nish material for the growth of the em¬ 
bryo plant—just as in the egg it helps the 
development of the unhatched chick. It 

is, in fact, nature's own “grow-stuff," and 
occurs wherever food is stored for the 
use of the embryo plant or animals. From 

it. Dr. Wiley says, we mainly derive the 
phosphorus which helps to nourish the 
brain, nerves and other tissues of the 
body. 

Drs. Wiley and Maxwell have per¬ 
formed some interesting experiments with 
eggs to find out what becomes of the 
phosphorus in the lecithin of the yolk. It 
was a difficult problem of chemical analy¬ 
sis, but its solution proved that during 
the process of incubation the organic 


phosphorus of the lecithin is transformed 
into the inorganic phosphorus of the 
bones of the chick. This was ascertained 
beyond question by analyzing first the 
fresh egg, and afterwards analyzing a 
newly-hatched chicken. 

WILL IT MAKE GIANTS? 

The process by which a human being 
or other animal grows is somewhat of a 
mystery, and nobody knows why devel¬ 
opment comes to an end at a certain stage 
of life. It is supposed that an alligator 
continues to grow throughout its entire 
life, and the same may he true of some 
other reptiles, but the growth period of 
a mammal is usually limited to about one- 
fifth of the term of its natural existence. 
If development during that period can 
be accelerated, the size of the animal at 
maturity will be greater. Hence it is 
thought that children judiciously dosed 
with lecithin may in this way be made 
to grow taller and more muscular. Per¬ 
haps. indeed, by this simple means we 
may yet be able to create a race of giants. 


MILK THE FIRST FOOD OF ALL MAMMALS.—GOVERN¬ 
MENT INSTRUCTION AS TO ITS PURITY. 


The souring of milk is due to the action 
of minute organisms known as bacteria. 
These bacteria are so minute that they 
can be seen only by the aid of a powerful 
microscope, but the result of the concerted 
action of myriads of them in souring 
milk is a familiar sight to every house¬ 
wife. Besides the ordinary souring of 
milk, there are many other changes 
which may take place—as the ripening of 
cream, the ripening of cheese, butter be¬ 
coming rancid, and many others less 
common. 


These changes are called fermenta¬ 
tions, because they are similar to the 
fermenting of cider to vinegar, the fer¬ 
mentations produced by yeast in beer 
making, etc. The term includes many 
changes due to other micro-organisms or 
ferments besides bacteria ; and so here fer¬ 
mentation is used to cover all the changes 
which occur in milk, such as curdling, 
souring, and putrefaction, most of which 
are caused by bacteria. The great import¬ 
ance of these fermentations of milk is be¬ 
ing realized. It is only by a proper con- 



434 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


trol of them that good butter or cheese 
can be made. 

SOURCES OF BACTERIA IN MILK. 

It has long since been ascertained be¬ 
yond question that pure milk, drawn from 
a healthy cow, contains no bacteria, and 
that all bacterial contamination of the 
milk comes from external sources. While 
this fact has been redemonstrated by the 
most recent work, it has appeared that the 
statement must be for practical purposes 
quite considerably modified. In the first 
place, the difficulties which lie in the way 
of obtaining milk from the cow without 
bacterial contamination are extremely 
great and sometimes seemingly insur¬ 
mountable. Of the many attempts which 
have been made to obtain milk in this 
way which shall from the first be sterile, 
most have proved failures. Enough of 
them have met with success to demon¬ 
strate the general position; but so many 
of them have been unsuccessful as to 
show the extreme difficulty of obtaining 
sterile milk in this way. In spite of 
cleanly methods, of sterilized vessels, and 
of the greatest care to prevent dirt and 
dust from falling into the milk, the milk 
when first drawn from the cow has in the 
large majority of cases contained bac¬ 
teria. The explanation of this fact has 
proved to be in the ease with which the 
milk is contaminated in the milk duct. 
The milk duct is, of course, open to the 
air, and it will contain at the close of the 
milking a considerable amount of milk 
adherent to its walls. Bacteria from the 
air have no difficulty in making their 
way into the duct, growing there, and 
becoming extremely numerous. The re¬ 
sult is that by the time of the next milk¬ 


ing the milk ducts contain bacteria in 
great numbers, and these will inevitably 
contaminate the milk. It has been sug¬ 
gested that the bacteria not only enter into 
the milk ducts between the milking, but 
that some of them actually make their 
way into the very depths of the milk gland 
itself, and there grow and multiply. Un¬ 
doubtedly the milk gland of the healthy 
cow produces milk which is uncontam¬ 
inated with bacteria, but the large caliber 
of the milk duct makes it possible for the 
bacteria to grow in the duct to consid¬ 
erable extent, so that it becomes a mat¬ 
ter of extreme difficulty to obtain milk 
from the cow, even with the greatest pre¬ 
cautions, which shall not be contaminated. 

THE AIR NOT A HOME FOR BAC¬ 
TERIA. 

Of late the air has come to be regarded 
as a less important source of contamina¬ 
tion than formerly. It is of course true 
that milk does receive some bacteria from 
the air during the milking. In an ill- 
ventilated stall, filled with dust from hay, 
bacteria will be floating in the air. When 
the milking occurs quantities of dirt and 
dust are brushed from the undersides of 
the cow’s body and fill the air in the im¬ 
mediate vicinity with bacteria; but such 
contamination is to be charged to the hay 
or dirt on the cow rather than the air. 

The milk vessels themselves are an im¬ 
portant source of contamination, as are 
also the hands and clothing of the milker. 
The milker seldom makes a cleanly toilet 
before milking, and any dirt upon his 
hands or upon his clothing will have 
abundant chance to get into the milk ves¬ 
sels. The ordinary water in which the 
milk vessels are washed, and especially 






Robbing the Evil One of power: The annual 1st of August exorcism in the Val di Rose 
of Italy. On the 1st of August every year the people of Val di Rose gather in the 
great square, which is also the public threshing-floor. The most intelligent man of the 
community is elected head of the people, and officiates at the ceremony. He solemnly 
attaches a puppet representing the devil to a small fire-balloon, which is liberated amid 
popular acclamation. The peasantry believe that for the rest of the year the Evil One 
will neither disturb their dreams nor damage the vintage. 





















436 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


with which the milk is too frequently di¬ 
luted, is also regarded as a very important 
source of bacteria contamination, particu¬ 
larly in connection with certain disease 
germs, like those of typhoid fever. But 
a more careful consideration of the work 
of the last few years shows that the great 
sources of bacteria contamination are 
from the cow itself, not, as we have seen, 
from internal, but from external sources. 

HANDLING OF MILK. 

To those dealing with milk itself in 
any form the various fermentations are 
fspecially undesirable and are constant 
sources of trouble. Such persons want 
the milk pure and sweet, and any of the 
various forms of fermentation injure the 
milk for their purposes. Our study of 
milk fermentations has taught us that the 
cause of all these fermentations, even the 
common souring, lies in the contamina¬ 
tion of the milk from without, and that 
the remedy lies in the exercise of extreme 
cleanliness. If there has been anything 
taught in regard to these matters it is the 
extreme necessity for cleanliness. Poor 
milk, poor butter, and poor cheese are, 
in a vast majority of cases, to be at¬ 
tributed to uncleanliness in the barn or 
dairy. „The great source of bacterial con¬ 
tamination of the milk is the cow herself. 
This does not mean the bacteria from the 


mammery gland, but those connected with 
the exterior of the cow. It is true that 
there are other sources of importance. 
The food that the cow eats (indirectly), 
the cow stall itself, the water with which 
the cans are washed or w T ith which the 
milk is adulterated, the hands of the 
milker as well as his clothes, are all occa¬ 
sionally the sources of bacteria contamina¬ 
tion. But after all w T e must look upon the 
cow herself as the cause of the most trou¬ 
ble. From the cow the bacteria get into the 
milk during the milking, partly from the 
milk ducts, partly from the dirt that is 
attached to the cow, and in no small 
measure from her dung. We thus learn 
that the important point toward which 
to direct the cleanliness is the cow her¬ 
self. The farmer never appears to feel 
that it is necessary for him to keep his 
cows as clean as he does his horse. But 
there is very much more real need for 
cleanliness in the case of the cow. Upon 
such cleanliness will depend his ability to 
obtain a pure, wholesome milk, while so 
sure as he allows his cow to become cov¬ 
ered with dirt and manure so sure will 
he be liable to have trouble with the milk. 
So it is well to repeat that the last few 
years have taught us, above all things, 
that the great secret of obtaining a 
proper supply of milk is to have a healthy 
con » and to keep that cow clean. 


WHAT TO DO IN TIMES OF DANGER. 

TREATMENT OF CUTS AND In dealing with a flesh wound keep 

FLESH WOUNDS. clearly in your mind the fact that poison 

The prime consideration that confronts germs are everywhere—in the atmos- 
one in the treatment of cuts and flesh phere, in the patient’s clothes, on his 
wounds is the ever present danger of flesh, on your own hands and in the water 
blood poisoning. with which you may be tempted to wash 








NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OE HEALTH 


437 


the wound. Do not, however, use water 
to wash the wound. If an artery is not 
severed and there is no immediate danger 
of bleeding to death take a clean cloth 
or handkerchief or a piece of absorbent 
cotton and use the flow of blood to wash 
out whatever dirt may have got into the 
wound at the time of the accident. On 
no account touch the wound with your 
hands unless it is necessary to use finger 
pressure upon a spot where an artery may 
be severed. Then as quickly as possible 
place a pad of absorbent cotton or gauze 
or clean muslin in the wound and bind 
it up firmly, keeping the thought steadily 
in your mind that every moment the 
wound is exposed it is being poisoned by 
the germs in the atmosphere. 

If the wound is in either of the limbs 
and is bleeding profusely lay the patient 
flat and elevate the wounded limb. 

If the bleeding comes in jets and spurts 
you may know that an artery has been 
severed. In this case first local pressure 
should be used—that is, place your fin¬ 
ger firmly upon the spot from which the 
blood is spurting; then place a clean pad 
on the wound and bandage as already 
directed. If the bleeding is not arrested 
it may be necessary to apply distant pres¬ 
sure—that is, at a poiht between the 
wound and the heart on a line followed by 
the great arteries from the heart to the 
wound. 

If the wound is in the head or neck 
the carotid artery must be compressed 
against the vertebral column on either 
side—the pressure being made with the 
thumb inward and backward, behind the 
windpipe, and on a level with the larynx. 

If the wound is in the upper limbs— 
high up, near the armpit—pressure must 


be made in a downward direction behind 
the collar bone. 

If the wound is in the lower arm or 
hand the pressure must be applied to the 
inside of the upper arm on the line at the 
base of the biceps muscles. 

If the wound is on the leg apply the 
pressure in the center of the groin and 
press straight back against the bone until 
the blood stops. 

As pressure with the finger and thumb 
cannot be maintained for any length of 
time, a tourniquet of some kind must be 
devised. This may be done by tying a 
handkerchief loosely around the part 
where the pressure is to be made, then 
put a hard pad. such as a cork, upon the 
part where the pressure is to be applied. 
Draw the handkerchief or strap over this 
hard pad and create pressure by placing 
a stick or handle of a knife between the 
flesh and the handkerchief and twist it 
round and round until you have obtained 
sufficient pressure to arrest the bleeding. 

After the bleeding has ceased it be¬ 
comes necessary to dress the wound and 
place the severed and lacerated flesh 
snugly back to its normal position. At 
this point, however, it is well to suppose 
that the patient is in the hands of a sur¬ 
geon and no more need be said. But it 
may happen that an accident takes place 
where the services of a surgeon are not 
readily available. Then it must be re¬ 
membered that cleanliness and only clean¬ 
liness is the thing to be considered. The 
greatest surgeon in the world can do no 
more than place the edges of the wound 
together, either by stitches or otherwise, 
and see to it that the wound is clean and 
everything coming in contact with the 
wound is surgically clean, which is the 



438 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


superlative degree of cleanliness. Na¬ 
ture does everything else. Never at¬ 
tempt to put plasters or lotions or pow¬ 
ders upon a wound to accelerate healing. 
Nature cannot be improved upon in this 
respect. 

In treating cuts and flesh wounds there 
is only one thing to remember and that is 
the word “clean.” Never let it leave 
your mind for an instant. Death or seri¬ 
ous consequences can only follow a flesh 
wound when this word is forgotten. 

RULES IN CASE OF FIRE. 

Crawl on the floor. The clearest air is 
the lowest in the room. Cover head with 
woolen wrap, wet, if possible. Cut holes 
for the eyes. (Don't get excited.) 

Familiarize vourself with the location 
of hall windows and natural escapes. 
Learn the location of exits to roofs of 
adjoining buildings. Learn the position 
of all stairways, particularly the top land¬ 
ing and scuttle to the roof. Should you 
hear cry of “fire,” and columns of smoke 
fill the rooms, above all keep cool. Keep 
the doors of rooms shut. Open windows 
from the top. Wet a towel, stuff it in the 
mouth, breathe through it instead of 
nose, so as not to inhale smoke. Stand 
at window and get benefit of outside air. 
If room fills with smoke keep close to 
floor and crawl along by the wall to the 
window. 

Do not jump unless the blaze behind is 
scorching you. Do not even then if the 
firemen with scaling ladders are coming- 
up the building or are near. Never go to 
the roof, unless as a last resort and you 
know there is escape from it to adjoining 
buildings. In big buildings fire always 
goes to the top. Do not jump through 


flame within a building without first cov¬ 
ering the head with a blanket or heavy 
clothing and gauging the distance. Don’t 
get excited; try to recall the means of 
exit, and if any firemen are in sight don’t 
jump. 

If the doors of each apartment, es¬ 
pecially in the lower part of the house, 
were closed every night before the occu¬ 
pants retired there would not be such a 
rapid spread of flames. 

HOW TO KEEP FROM BEING 
DROWNED. 

“Don't go near the water till you have 
learned to swim” is old advice, but some¬ 
thing more practical is needed for bathers 
and sea-travelers. 

“The first piece of advice I would give 
to bathers,” said a veteran of the life-sav¬ 
ing service, “is: Don't go far from shore. 
Swimming is one of the hardest exer¬ 
cises in the world, and a man must be 
well used to it. No matter whether he is 
as fit as a fiddle to run a five-mile race in 
record time, let him be careful how far he 
tries to swim. 

“Every muscle is used when a man is 
swimming, many of them that are never 
brought into play in any other way. This 
is the main reason why so many fellows 
get into trouble every year. 

“They feel good and strong, and when 
they get into the water they swim and 
swim until they get tired. Then when 
they try to swim back again their strength 
plays out. and if help isn’t near by they 
get rattled. The next day the newspapers 
have another account of ‘An Expert 
Swimmer Drowned.’ 

“Getting rattled is another thing to 
guard against. Nine times out of ten this 






NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 439 


has more to do with people getting into 
trouble than anything else. Whatever 
you do or wherever you are, keep cool— 
keep your nerve. A man can stay afloat 
a long time if he won't get rattled, no 
matter what's the trouble with him. 

‘.‘There's a spot just off Norton's Point 
where you can't make headway in one 
direction or the other. If you are caught 
in there with a boat you can't pull out. so 
you can have an idea of what kind of 
work a swimmer has cut out for him. 
There is only one thing to do, and that is 
to keep cool and quiet, and after a while 
the current will carry you out, but you 
can't get out by swimming. That is what 
we call a ‘sea puss.’ 

“In a race I had once some years ago 
from the Battery to Coney Island I got 
caught in this place. I knew it the min¬ 
ute I reached it, so I didn't try to swim, 
but turned over on my back and floated. 

“In the course of a few minutes I was 
whirled out, and went on and won my 
race. Now, an inexperienced swimmer 
would have got rattled, made big efforts 
to get out, and finally have tired himself 
out and sunk. 

CRAMPS. 

“Don’t be afraid of cramps is another 
thing that all swimmers should remem¬ 
ber. There has been so much said and 
written about cramps that people are 
scared to death when they feel a little 
cramp coming on in a toe or hand. Then 
they lose their nerve altogether and give 
up, where by being cool they could have 
made their way to shore in safety. 

“Lots of the pleasure of bathers is 
taken away by this fear. I won’t say that 
cramps are not slightly dangerous, but 
they are never so bad that a swimmer 


can't take care of himself. Swimmers 
with any kind of ability ought to be able 
to swim any reasonable distance with any 
kind of a cramp. The ones who are not 
good swimmers should always hug the 
shore and never take chances. 

“Cramps are brought on by swimming. 
So when you feel one coming on stop 
using the leg or arm where it is located. 
If you turn over on your back and float a 
while that will give the cramp a chance 
to go away, but even if it doesn't it won't 
prevent you from swimming slowly and 
getting to shore. 

“Most people think a cramp spreads 
gradually until it goes all over the body 
from a little cramp in the toe. This isn't 
so. It is always confined to the leg or 
arm. where it starts. This is proved by 
the fact that it goes away when you quit 
using the leg or arm. 

“I have never yet been in a swimming 
race for a long distance that I haven’t had 
a cramp in a leg or arm. I got one in my 
right leg one time so bad that the leg 
locked at the knee-joint everv time I 
made a kick. Yet I not only finished the 
race, but won it. 

“Whenever you hear cramp stories 
some one is sure to mention stomach 
cramps. They are^ supposed to be the 
most dangerous kind. You hear where 
people are doubled up like a jack-knife 
and then sink like a stone. Now, as a 
matter of fact, in all my experience I 
never had a stomach cramp or saw a per¬ 
son with one. 

“If they ever happen they have kept 
out of my sight. And I don't believe 
there is such a thing. This is another 
fairy story that has been told until every¬ 
body believes it. So that when a fellow 



440 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


in swimming gets a little pain in. the 
stomach he at once imagines he has 
stomach cramps, and that lie’s a goner, 
and will at once yell for help or do some¬ 
thing foolish. 

“It's nearly always the poor swimmer 
who gets into trouble, for he is the one to 
take the greatest chances. Good swim¬ 
mers always travel in pairs, so they can 
aid one another in case of trouble. You 
often see the head of one of these poor 
swimmers bobbing about way off shore, 
although we try our best to keep them in, 
and when one of them gets into trouble 
he is usually so far out that he is gone 
before we can get at him.” 

PANICS. 

Panic is man’s greatest enemy and de¬ 
stroyer. It bloats ordinary accidents into 
great disasters. It is the annihilator of 
common sense and the last vestige of rea¬ 
son. In the twinkling of an eye it turns 
men into brutes, making them mad with 
unreasoning terror. It even transforms 
brave men into the most arrant cowards. 

Panic, according to dictionary defini¬ 
tion, is “a sudden fright; especially a 
sudden fright without real cause, or ter¬ 
ror inspired by a trifling cause or misap¬ 
prehension of danger.” 

Fear causes its victim to reason out 
ways of escape from the impending dan¬ 
ger. “If I don't find a way out of this,” 
says the man caught in a burning build¬ 
ing, “I fear I’ll be burned to death.” 
Reason still guides the man who fears, 
and usually guides him to safety. 

HOW PANIC OPERATES. 

But panic is infinitely worse. All bar¬ 
riers go down before it. 


A little puff of smoke, and a whole 
audience is madly scrambling for the 
exits of the theatre, the weakest being 
knocked down and trampled under foot 
and killed, the dead and injured piled in 
heaps at the choked-up exits, that, had 
the crowd been orderly, would have per¬ 
mitted of the passage of all to safety be¬ 
fore real danger threatened those in the 
rear. What killed the majority of the 
victims in the Iroquois Theatre horror? 
Some of the occupants of the upper gal¬ 
lery were suffocated by the heat, but as 
for the rest, the heaps of bodies before the 
exits and the bruises on the corpses 
showed that not fire or smoke or heat, but 
panic, claimed their lives. 

A girl in a tobacco factory in Philadel¬ 
phia runs a needle into her finger. She 
screams from the pain. Instantly the 200 
workers on her floor spring up as one 
girl, rush blindly down the stairs and 
jump from the third-story windows, and 
a half-dozen lives are sacrificed and two- 
score or more girls injured. 

A steamship meets with an accident, 
perhaps slight, perhaps serious, but not so 
serious that the passengers can not be got 
off in safety in plenty of time, pro¬ 
vided order is maintained. But a woman 
swoons, a man grows excited over some 
unusual happening on the deck, he rushes 
wildly at the lowering lifeboats, and the 
useless sacrifice of life has begun. 

DISASTERS OF THE PAST. 

Throw back your mind to past dis¬ 
asters of recent years—include the Paris 
Bazar fire horror, where strong men, in 
their panic, beat women back into the 
flames—and I daresay you will recall 
vividly the fact that the word panic oc- 



NEWEST DISCOl 'FRIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 441 


curred again and again in the accounts— 
that panic, according to eye witnesses and 
the authorities, caused the greater part of 
the loss of life; that, without panic, the 
majority of the victims would surely 
have escaped with their lives. And you 
can hardly read of small accidents with¬ 
out running across “panic." “Fierce 
Drug Fire—Blaze in Store Starts a Panic 
on the Floors Above." “Killed in Blow- 
Up—Panic in Dye Works." Panic is the 
god of most disasters, great and small. 

PANIC A POSSIBILITY EVERY¬ 
WHERE. 

Panic is a possibility everywhere at any 
time where two or three are gathered to¬ 
gether for any purpose whatsoever. And 
because it feeds on nothing or a triviality, 
because it robs fear of reason where fear 
is well founded, it is the most difficult 
thing with which firemen, policemen, and 
other civic regulators of order have to 
cope. 

There is apparatus plenty with which 
to fight fire. But there is only one thing 
to pit against panic. That is a cool head, 
and its efficaciousness is limited. It can 
at best save only its owner and those in 
the immediate vicinity. It can reduce the 
death list, but it cannot prevent it. There¬ 
fore, no general rule can be laid down 
against it. Only guidance for the indi¬ 
vidual is possible of outline. 

THE GREAT PRECAUTIONARY 
RULE. 

The great precautionary rule is this: 
If any member of your family is going 
to the theatre, a musicale. or any sort of 
public gathering, take particular pains to 
impress upon him the supreme importance 
of keeping his seat in case anything causes 


the audience to rush pell-mell for the 
exits. Drive it home hard that the seat 
must be kept by all means during the first 
mad rush and until the crush has swept 
past. 

By that time your wife, or son, or 
daughter will have had time to think out 
coolly a means of escape, and will un¬ 
doubtedly effect it, if you have also in¬ 
sisted upon the pleasure-goer becoming 
familiar with the location of the different 
exits as soon as possible after entering the 
building. 

In case of a theatre, or other public 
meeting place, this can be very well done 
by studying the diagrams of the place, 
which are required to be exhibited upon 
the programs and in the lobby. These 
diagrams mark the fire escapes and the 
exits. Men, in this matter, can equip 
themselves more fully than women. For 
example, if they are attending a theatre, 
before the play begins they can walk 
around back of the seats, locating by eye 
the various ways of escape. Of course, 
such a method is hard for women to pur¬ 
sue. But a close study of the diagrams 
will be extremely effective, depend on 
that. 

WHEN PANIC STRIKES. 

This, then, is the first thing to do to 
combat panic—to be prepared for it. 
Then, when it comes, keep cool. If you 
can do that, more than likely you can 
keep those around- you cool. Speak to 
them in a quiet, even, commanding tone. 
“Keep cool," tell them. “Keep your seats. 
Stay out of the crush. You’ll get hurt. 
Keep your seats, I say. Don't you see 
that we'll get out all right if you’ll just 
*keep your seats and keep cool." 



442 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Your words will undoubtedly have the 
desired effect on the majority of those 
who hear them. But if any one shows 
a tendency toward panic, which may he 
communicated to his neighbors, don't 
hesitate to pull his sleeve or coattail vig¬ 
orously, and gruffly command him to “sit 
down.” The unexpected order may bring 
back his fleeting reason; at the least, it 
will give him and those about you a mo¬ 
ment’s respite from brute force that may 
mean the ultimate salvation of all of you. 

Don't follow the mob and rush to and 
block up the exits. Let the wave of panic 
sweep by you. Then, using your reason, 
pick out the way that it tells you permits 
of probable escape. Let reason guide you 
there; and if you find more difficulty than 
you looked for still keep cool. Perhaps 
you have reached a window on the upper 
part of a fire escape, the lower part of 
which is licked by flames. Don’t jump. 
Common sense has carried you in sight 
of the firemen. It will keep you safe 
until the firemen can reach you, which 
will be in a minute or less. 

As you kept your neighbors quiet until 
the time came for you to effect escape, so 
you can lead them to a place of safety, 
for once you have established respect in 
them for you by making them obey your 
first command, they are too human not 
to follow like sheep where the stronger 
mind leads. This is the only efficacious 
method I know of to help others out of a 
panic. 

PANIC ON THE WATER. 

A panic among a crowd on water— 
always a possible thing in summer with 
so many excursion boats plying around 


the majority of ourjarger cities—should 
be handled in much the same fashion. 

The tendency i« for all the passengers 
to rush to one side of the boat. If such 
a thing occurs the rail will speedily be 
under water. But if you of the cool head 
should not permit this listing of human 
cargo, urge—nay, command—as many 
of your fellow-passengers as you come in 
contact with to make for the opposite rail. 
Point out that there they will be dry, at 
least, and farther away from the water 
which they fear. 

If no one will follow you, go there 
alone. Stay there until the brutal fight 
for possession of the lifeboats is over. 
Stay there even when the overloaded life¬ 
boats leave the ship's side, to sink, per¬ 
haps, with too great weight, before they 
are out of your sight. You will be safer 
by the rail. 

Stick to the vessel as long as common 
sense tells you is proper. Then, if you 
have no life-preserver, remember that any 
frail object—a fragment of board, a 
piece of the ship’s rail, an oar, a chair— 
will support you for hours in the water. 
All you have to do is to grasp it lightly 
with your hands, and you will float in 
ordinary cases until help comes. 

You can do more. If any one is de¬ 
pendent on you in the emergency, you 
can provide him with the means of keep¬ 
ing afloat. Or. if you deem it better to 
keep your companion—perhaps your wife 
or your daughter—with you, then have 
her lightly place a hand on your shoulder 
while you grasp the float. Thus both of 
you will stand infinitely better chance of 
rescue than if, fighting, you had plunged 
headlong into the overcrowded lifeboats. 




NEWEST DISCOVERIES IN THE SECRETS OF HEALTH 


U3 


WHEN PANIC WORKS IN INDI¬ 
VIDUALS. 

Panic not only seizes hold of gather¬ 
ings—it works in individuals. It is panic 
that causes this woman or that man to 
jump from the upper windows of a burn¬ 
ing house, or to run shrieking through 
smoke and heat-filled halls, inviting suf¬ 
focation, when the only reasonable thing 
to do, if other escape is cut off, is to 
stand at a window where fresh air can be 
had and wait for the firemen to reach you, 
which they generally manage to do, since 
that is a part of their life work. 

Panic, operating in individuals, is 
largely responsible for hotel holocausts. 
Of course, carelessness on the part of 
guests is also somewhat to blame, for 
how many guests of a hotel are ever 
aware of the means provided for their 
escape? But ignorance does not preclude 
all hope of escape, by any means, while 
panic practically seals its victim’s doom. 

Panic—unreasoning terror; “terror in¬ 
spired by a trifling cause or misappre¬ 
hension of danger.” You say a fire like 
the one in the Iroquois Theatre was not 
a misapprehension of danger? It cer¬ 
tainly was, in that the audience forgot 
completely that fire has to burn up before 
it can spread out. That takes time, and 


in that time, if only the audience had not 
been possessed of a sudden j^ight that the 
fire would come out on them immediately, 
I believe, and others who know the cir¬ 
cumstances fully believe, that probably 
every occupant of the parquet would have 
escaped, and many in the gallery, also. 

PANIC PREVENTS ESCAPE. 

Unless the whole place blazes up in¬ 
stantly, which is a very remote possibil¬ 
ity, a theatre or other public place with 
the escapes provided according to law 
can surely be emptied when a fire is dis¬ 
covered without loss of life before the 
flames become really menacing, if only 
the audience can be made to keep its head. 
Any theatre in New York can be emptied 
in three to four minutes—ample time, for 
a fire cannot reach out over the audience 
in less time than that. If the Iroquois 
Theatre audience had only recognized 
this fact, and not blocked the exits, there 
would have been a far less gruesome tale 
to tell to the world just entering on its 
Christmas festival. 

Your only weapon when panic surges 
around you is a cool head. Keep it, and 
the odds are largely in your favor that 
you will reach a place of safety. Lose it, 
and you throw your life away. 












BOOK VI 


Problems, Mysteries 

AND 


Powers ofLife, Minded Soul 

WITH ALL THE 

Startling Discoveries and Developments of Recent 
Research in the Sources and Means of 
H uman Wisdom and Power 


all the wonderful achievements in the start¬ 
ling PHENOMENA OF MENTAL SCIENCE, ILLUS¬ 
TRATING THE TRUTHS FROM WHICH 
HAS ARISEN THE MANY BELIEFS 
AND CULTS OF SOCIETY 












The Catacombs of Rome (forty in number) extend round the city in a wide circle covering 
615 acres. If all their passages were placed in a continuous line 
their total length would be 545 miles. 















PROBLEMS, MYSTERIES AND POWERS 
x OF LIFE, MIND AND SOUL, 



A MARVELOUS NEW SCIENCE. 


HAT vast science, the new psy¬ 
cholog}’, now about twenty 
years of age, has already be¬ 
come majestic, sublime, com¬ 
plex. Indeed, even now, it is more in¬ 
tricate by far than astronomy. 

The discoveries now being made in the 
great psychological laboratories of the 
world are of the highest possible interest. 
The leading psychologists now assert that 
the only difference between the minds of 
the lower animals and man is merely one 
of degree only. That is, minds of men 
are of the same kind as those of all other 
animals, but many times stronger. 

Careful and long continued experi¬ 
ments have demonstrated that even low 
tvpes of animals have reason that differs 
only from that of man in degree. 

All organic beings are mere colonies of 
cells—i. e., cities of individual living en¬ 
tities. At present it is unknown what life 
is, but each cell is a centre or source of 
life. Ganglia are nodes or collections of 
cells into smaller communities: and in the 
human brain different combinations of 
the same kinds of cells may produce dif¬ 
ferent faculties of mind. For differing 
associations of the same kind of ultimate 
corpuscles—there is but one kind—give 
rise to all the phases revealed by ordinary 
chemistry, and by the spectroscope. The 
universe is made up of varying combines 
of life corpuscles into infinite diversity; 


and variations in thought, from late 
analyses of mind and brain, seem to be 
caused by varying clusters together of 
one kind of brain cells in ganglia. 

WHAT IS MIND? 

Mind is now known to be a product of 
brain cell activity—that is, mind is a re¬ 
sult. Mice, birds, insects have been shown 
to be possessed of reason. Animals learn 
by experience and store this experience 
in memory for long periods of time. 
Love, affection, veneration, love of the 
beautiful, gratitude, conscience, consid¬ 
eration. contrition, sorrow, trouble, care, 
mercy, pity and many other attributes for 
long deemed to be human only are now 
known to be possessed by animals, in 
many cases to a high degree. 

Several books giving thousands of in¬ 
stances are published. The most rigid 
scrutiny made by careful and conserva¬ 
tive scientific psychologists during the 
last twenty years has been totally unable 
to detect any trace in body or brain or 
find any analogy in nature concerning the 
existence of what is popularly called the 
soul. Blood cells build flesh, stomach 
cells digest and brain cells evolve mind. 
Psychologists are incapable of finding 
any difference between the three proc¬ 
esses. In tlie present state of psychic 
science it is not known what mind is, but 
whatever it may be it is known that it is 
caused by the action of brain and nerve 



447 











BOOK OF THE TIMES 


44 8 


cells. When this activity ends all traces 
of mind come to an end. Cells that origi¬ 
nate mind are far more complex than 
those that perform the office of secretion 
in elands. The secretion of mind is of 
greater complexity than the secretion of 
bile or gastric fluids. But all are devel¬ 
oped by the work of cells. 

PSYCHICAL 

OPINIONS OF THE GREAT SCI¬ 
ENTIST SIR WILLIAM 
CROOKES. 

No incident in my scientific career is 
more widely known than the part I took 
many years ago in certain psychic re¬ 
searches. Thirty years have passed since 
I published an account of experiments 
tending to show that outside our scientific 
knowledge there exists a Force exercised 
by intelligence differing from the ordi¬ 
nary intelligence common to mortals. To 
enter at length on a still debatable sub¬ 
ject would be unduly to insist on a topic 
which does not yet enlist the interest of 
the majority of my scientific brethren. 
To ignore the subject would be an act of 
cowardice. 

To stop short in any research that bids 
fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to 
recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse 
criticism, is to bring reproach on science. 
There is nothing for the investigator to 
do but to go straight on; “to explore up 
and down, inch by inch, with the taper 
his reason”; to follow the light wherever 
it may lead, even should it at times re¬ 
semble a will-o’-the wisp. I have nothing 
to retract. I adhere to my already pub¬ 
lished statements. Indeed, I might add 
much thereto. I regret only a certain 


Perhaps the world is now ready to re¬ 
ceive this generalization, thus: The 
human mind contains no faculty that can¬ 
not be found in the minds of animals, in 
less degree; and in some cases in higher 
degree. Hence, the latest researches in 
mind confirm the fundamental law of na¬ 
ture—evolution. 

RESEARCH. 

crudity in those early expositions which, 
no doubt justly, militated against their 
acceptance by the scientific world. My 
own knowledge at that time extended be¬ 
yond the fact that certain phenomena new 
to science had assuredly occurred, and 
were attested by my own sober senses 
and, better still, by automatic record. I 
was like some two-dimensional being who 
might stand at the singular point of a 
Riemann’s surface, and thus find himself 
in infinitesimal and inexplicable contact 
with a plane of existence not his own. 

I think I see a little farther now. I 
have glimpses of something like coherence 
among the strange, elusive phenomena; 
of something like continuity between 
those unexplained forces and laws al¬ 
ready known. This advance is largely 
due to the labors of the Society for Psy¬ 
chical Research. And were I now intro¬ 
ducing for the first time inquiries to the 
world of science I should choose a start¬ 
ing point different from that of old. It 
would be well to begin with telepathy; 
with the fundamental law, as I believe it 
to be, that thoughts and images may be 
transferred from one mind to another 
without the agency of the recognized or¬ 
gans of sense—that knowledge may enter 
the human mind without being eommuni- 







PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


449 


cated in any hitherto known or recog¬ 
nized ways. 

FACTS IN TELEPATHY. 

I will confine myself to pointing out 
the direction in which scientific investiga¬ 
tion can legitimately advance. If telep¬ 
athy take place we have two physical facts 
—the physical change in the brain of A, 
the suggester, and the analogous physical 
change in the brain of B, the recipient of 
the suggestion. Between these two phys¬ 
ical events there must exist a train of 
physical cause. Such a sequence can only 
occur through an intervening medium. 
All the phenomena of the universe are 
presumably in some way continuous, and 
it is unscientific to call in the aid of 
mysterious agencies when, with every 
fresh advance in knowledge, it is shown 
that ether vibrations have powers and at¬ 
tributes abundantly equal to any demand 
—even to the transmission of thought. 
It is supposed bv some physiologists that 
the essential cells of nerves do not actual¬ 
ly touch, but are separated by a narrow 
gap which widens in sleep, while it nar¬ 
rows almost to extinction during mental 
activity. This condition is so singularly 
like that of a Branly or Lodge coherer as 
to suggest a further analogy. The struc¬ 
ture of brain and nerve being similar, it 
is conceivable there may be present 
masses of such nerve coherers in the brain 
whose special function it may be to re¬ 
ceive impulses brought from without 
through the connecting sequence of ether 
waves of- appropriate order of magnitude. 
Roentgen has familiarized us with an 
order of vibrations of extreme minute¬ 
ness compared with the smallest waves 
with which we have hitherto been ac¬ 


quainted. and of dimensions comparable 
with the distance between the centers of 
the atoms of which the material universe 
is built up; and there is no reason to sup¬ 
pose that we have reached the limit of 
frequency. It is known that the action of 
thought is accompanied by certain molec¬ 
ular movements in the brain, and here 
we have physical vibrations capable, from 
their extreme minuteness, of acting on in¬ 
dividual molecules, while their rapidity 
approaches that of the internal and ex¬ 
ternal movements of the atoms them¬ 
selves. 

EVIDENCES OF TELEPATHIC 
COMMUNICATION. 

Confirmation of telepathic phenomena 
is afforded by many converging experi¬ 
ments and by many spontaneous occur¬ 
rences only thus intelligible. The most 
varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from 
analysis of the subconscious workings of 
the mind, when these, whether by acci¬ 
dent or design, are brought into conscious 
survey. Evidence of a region below the 
threshold of consciousness has been pre¬ 
sented. since its first inception, in the Pro¬ 
ceedings of the Society for Psychical Re¬ 
search. and its various aspects are being 
interpreted and welded into a compre¬ 
hensive whole by the pertinacious genius 
of F. \Y. H. Myers. Concurrently, our 
knowledge of the facts in this obscure re¬ 
gion has received valuable additions at 
the hands of laborers in other countries. 
To mention a few names out of many, 
the observations of Richet. Pierre Janet, 
and Binet (in France), of Breur and 
Freud (in Austria), of William James 
(in America), have strikingly illustrated 
the extent to which patient experimenta- 






450 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


lion can probe subliminal processes, and 
can thus learn the lessons of alternating 
personalities and abnormal states. While 

it is clear that our knowledge of subcon- 

• 

scious mentation is still to be develooed, 
we must beware of rashly assuming that 
all variations from the normal waking 
condition are necessarily morbid. The 
human race has reached no fixed or 
changeless ideal. In every direction there 
is evolution as well as disintegration. 

A formidable range of phenomena 
must be scientifically sifted before we ef¬ 
fectually grasp a faculty so strange, be¬ 
wildering, and for ages so inscrutable, as 
the direct action of mind. This delicate 
task needs a rigorous employment of the 
method of exclusion—a constant setting 
aside of irrelevant phenomena that could 
be explained by known causes, including 
those far too familiar causes, conscious 
and unconscious fraud. The inquiry 
unites the difficulties inherent in all ex¬ 
perimentation connected with mind, with 
tangled human temperaments, and with 
observations dependent less on automatic 
record than on personal testimony. But 
difficulties are things to be overcome even 
in the elusory branch of research known 
as experimental psychology. It has been 
characteristic of the leaders among the 
group of inquirers constituting the So¬ 
ciety for Psychical Research to combine 
critical and negative work with work 
leading to positive discovery. 

VAGUENESS OF PROOF. 

It has been said that “Nothing worth 
the proving can be proved, nor yet dis¬ 
proved.” True though this may have 
been in the past, it is true no longer. 
The science of our country has forged 


weapons of observation and analysis by 
which the veriest tyro may profit. Sci¬ 
ence has trained and fashioned the aver¬ 
age mind into habits of exactitude and 
disciplined perception, and in so doing has 
fortified itself for tasks higher, wider, and 
incomparably more wonderful than even 
the wisest among our ancestors imagined. 
It has ascended to a point of vision far 
above the earth. It is henceforth open to 
science to transcend all we now think we 
know of matter and to gain new glimpses 
of a profounder scheme of Cosmic law. 

An eminent professor of psychology 
declared that “by an intellectual necessity 
he crossed the boundary of experimental 
evidence, and discerned in that matter, 
which we, in our ignorance of its latent 
powers, and notwithstanding our pro¬ 
fessed reverence for its Creator, have 
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the 
potency and promise of all terrestrial 
life. I should prefer to reverse the 
apothegm, and to say that in life I see the 
promise and potency of all forms of mat¬ 
ter. 

In old Egyptian days a well-known in¬ 
scription was carved over the portal of 
the temple of Isis: *“I am whatever hath 
been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no 
man hath yet lifted." Not thus do modern 
seekers after truth confront nature—the 
word that stands for the baffling mys¬ 
teries of the universe. Steadily, un- 
unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the in¬ 
most heart of Nature, from what she is, 
to reconstruct what she has been, and to 
prophesy what she yet shall be. Veil af¬ 
ter veil we have lifted, and her face grows 
more beautiful, august, and wonderful 
with every barrier that is withdrawn. 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOUL 


451 


SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES FOR THE EXISTENCE OF 

MAN AND GOD. 


The proof of the existence of God is 
precisely the same in kind as the proof of 
the existence of a man. except more ex¬ 
tensive and stronger. It may be that 
neither one exists, but if there is reason 
to believe that men exist there is the same 
reason, only stronger, to believe in the 
existence of God. 

An old and much-venerated book has 
said: “If a man loveth not his brother, 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God, 
whom he had not seen?" but the truth is 
no man has ever seen either his brother or 
God. A man's body is not the man. It is 
the same in form and material the mo¬ 
ment after death as it was the moment 
before death, but nobody regards a corpse 
as a man. There are. it is true, a few ma¬ 
terialists who believe that the body is all 
there is of a man. but the almost universal 
belief is that a man is an immortal soul 
which may dwell in a human body and 
mav not. and a human soul no man has 
ever seen or cognized in any way what¬ 
ever. 

PERSONS ALL UNSEEN TO ONE 
ANOTHER. 

\\Tien we say. in common parlance, that 
we have seen a certain man we mean that 
we have seen his body and witnessed in 
connection with it the phenomena of life. 
We have seen the glance of his eye. we 
have felt the warmth of his hand, we have 

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES 

It is a most curious fact that modern 
science the world over has turned its tire¬ 
less energies into every field of human 
interest except the one most momentous 


heard the music of his voice and it may 
be we have seen an exhibition of his physi¬ 
cal strength and his intellectual power 
and demonstrations of his emotions, but 
all this falls infinitely short of seeing, 
hearing or feeling the man himself. 

The only reason we have to believe in 
the existence of the immaterial man is 
certain physical phenomena, and we have 
the same kind of reason to believe in the 
existence of the invisible God. For what 
the human body is to the human soul, for 
evidential purposes at least, the universe 
is to God. and this has given rise to the 
theory that God is the soul of the uni¬ 
verse. 

Here the parallel stops, though, as the 
demonstrations of power, of intelligence 
and of emotion are as much more exten¬ 
sive and more convincing in the universe 
as the universe is larger than the human 
body. The marks of design everywhere 
are so overpowering that scientists are 
actually unable to explain any part of 
nature without using the phrase “this is 
intended." 

All this falls far short, to some minds 
at least, of proving the existence of either 
God or man. for the positive philosophy 
of Comte denies the existence of any- 
tiring but phenomena, and the philosophi¬ 
cal materialists hold that organized mat¬ 
ter thinks and feels. 

OF LIFE AFTER DEATH. 

problem of ail—life beyond the grave. 
In the last few years, however, a serious 
and well sustained effort has been made 
to investigate whatever evidence could be 



4 52 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


gathered as tending to prove or disprove 
man's hope of immortality. 

The psychological research societies of 
England and America have been the lead¬ 
ers in these investigations. With a mem¬ 
bership of the foremost scientists, 
scholars, college professors and public 
men of the day, the committees of investi¬ 
gation and experiment have been peculiar¬ 
ly well equipped. The various phenomena 
of sleep, dreams, premonitions, visions, 
thought-transfer, apparitions, have been 
cautiously studied. The boastful claims 
of “materializing mediums,” “spirit pho¬ 
tographers" and fraudulent seance me¬ 
diums have been patiently examined and 
the atmosphere cleared of much of the 
nonsense and trickery which have deluded 
the credulous. 

A vast mass of experiences from all 
over the world has been collected, and 
phenomena everywhere have been pa¬ 
tiently investigated by scientific specialists 
of the mind, so that no claims of hap¬ 
penings or belief have ever had such a 
thorough research into their realities. 

To Professor Myers of Cambridge, 
England, was given the task of sifting 
all this tremendous array of evidence 
through which to reach a scientific con¬ 
clusion. 

After stripping bare the ingenious 
frauds which have deceived many, and 
analyzing one after another of the phe¬ 
nomena of the subconscious mind, which 
for a long time puzzled science. Pro¬ 
fessor Myers finds that he has left a mass 
of evidence which can be accounted for 
only on the theory that man lives a dual 
existence—one of the body and one of 
the soul or spirit. It is with that portion 
of the author’s work which presents the 


evidences of spiritual existence after 
bodily death, of communications from the 
dead, that this page deals today. 

He has written the following as his 
epitomized conclusion: 

The question for man most momentous 
of all is whether or no he has a mortal 
soul; whether or no his personality in¬ 
volves any element which can survive 
bodily death. In this direction have al¬ 
ways lain the greatest fears, the farthest- 
reaching hopes, and yet, man has never 
applied the method of science to the 
problem of survival beyond the grave. 

1 he method of modern science consists 
in an interrogation of Nature entirely 
dispassionate, patient, systematic, and it 
is the application of careful scientific in¬ 
vestigations of the many and varied phe¬ 
nomena of sleep, apparitions, pre¬ 
monitions, dreams, and many other puz¬ 
zling human experiences which bring us 
to certain conclusions and results as to the 
proof of existence after death. 

MYSTERIES OF PERSONALITY. 

Whereas, till recently, the personality 
of man was regarded as something that 
was bounded by the limits of the normal 
consciousness, we now know “that, like 
an iceberg, which floats with most of its 
bulk submerged, the human mind, from 
its first clay to its last, has more of itself 
below the level of consciousness than ever 
appears above it." We now are aware 
that personality is not “unitary.” There 
is one part of it which is above the thresh- 
hold of ordinary consciousness and an¬ 
other part which is normally below it; 
and the first we may call the supraliminal, 
and the second the subliminal self. 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


453 


THE SHOCK OF DEATH. 

These various significant phenomena 
are being gradually brought into line with 
modern science, and they bring the 
strongest proof to show that the soul 
withstands the shock of death and that 
veridical messages may be given phan- 
tasmally to mortal man by spirits after 
bodily death. 

The ancient hypothesis of an indwelling 
soul, possessing and using the body as a 
whole, yet bearing a real, though obscure 
relation to the various more or less ap¬ 
parently disparate conscious groupings 
manifested in connection with the organ¬ 
ism and in connection with more or less 
localized groups of nerve matter, is a 
hypothesis not more perplexing, not more 
cumbrous, than any other hypothesis yet 
suggested. It is conceivably provable by 
direct observation. Certain manifesta¬ 
tions of central individualities, associated 
now or formerly with certain definite 
organisms, have been observed in opera¬ 
tion apart from those organisms, both 
while the organisms were still living and 
after they had decayed. Whether or no 
this thesis be as yet sufficiently proved, 
it is at least at variance with no scientific 
principle or established fact whatever; 
and it is of a nature which continued ob¬ 
servation may conceivably establish to 
the satisfaction of all. 

From the evidential scrutiny of modern 
facts we shall find that there are coinci¬ 
dences of dream with truth which neither 
purely chance nor any subconscious men¬ 
tation of any ordinary kind will ade¬ 
quately explain. It is probable that the 
facts of the metetherial world are far 
more complex than the facts of the ma¬ 
terial world; that the ways in which 


spirits perceive and communicate, apart 
from fleshly organisms, are subtler and 
more varied than any perception of com¬ 
munication which we know. 

The inference which all the mass of evi¬ 
dence suggests is that man is an organism 
informed or possessed by the soul. This 
view obviously involves the hypothesis 
that we are living a life in two worlds at 
once—a planetary life in this material 
world and also cosmic life in that spiritual 
or metetherial world which is the native 
environment of the soul. 

DEATH COMPACTS. 

Experiments with what may be called 
“death compacts”—the exchange of 
solemn promises between two friends to 
appear to each other if possible after 
death—have led to important results. 
There is real ground to believe that while 
such posthumous appearances may in 
most cases be impossible, yet that the 
previous tension of the will in that di¬ 
rection makes it more likely that the 
longed-for meeting shall be accomplished. 
This is a kind of experiment which all 
can make, and we have two or three au¬ 
thenticated cases where this compact has 
been made and where an apparition has 
followed. 

In these self-projections we have the 
most extraordinary achievement of hu¬ 
man will. W hat can lie further outside 
any known capacity than the ]>ower to 
cause the semblance of one's self to ap¬ 
pear at a distance? Other achievements 
of man have their manifest element: 
where is the element here? The spirit 
has shown itself in part dissociated from 
the organism; to what point may this 
dissociation go? Tt has shown some in- 




454 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


telligence, some permanence; to what de¬ 
gree of intelligence or independence, of 
permanence may it conceivably attain? 

Of all vital phenomena, this is the most 
significant; this self-projection is the one 
definite act which seems as though a man 
might perform equally well before and 
after bodily death. 

“THE NEW HELL.” 

“St. John the revelator saw ‘a new 
heaven and a new earth/ but it was re¬ 
served for the prophets of the present day 
to declare a new hell." Thus writes 
George T. Knight, professor of Christian 
theology in Tufts college. Professor 
Knight goes on to describe the change 
which has taken place in the popular con¬ 
ception of hell within recent years—a 
change which he ascribes to the growth of 
altruism or sympathy in human nature. 
Today the pulpit is not so ready to con¬ 
sign human beings to a place of torment, 
nor are congregations now so often har¬ 
rowed by the old lurid pictures of that 
place. Professor Knight notes that to¬ 
day “practically no one questions that all 
children are saved" and that “this single 
change of doctrine has reduced by one- 
half the number of those consigned, by 
men, to perdition.” He continues : 

There seems to be among people in 
general, four states of mind with refer¬ 
ence to this subject. The old doctrine of 
endless punishment still appears in some 
books; the doctrine of the annihilation of 
the wicked has also many advocates; a 
large number are quite noncommittal and 
do not know which way to turn; and, 
finally, there are many expressions of the 
larger hope. Among thoughtful Protes¬ 


tants in German)’, France, Great Britain 
and America, it is not clear which one of 
the four _states of mind is most largely 
represented—though in America there is 
no doubt that endless punishment is com¬ 
monly taught, or at least held. But the 
number of those who are to be subjected 
to its discipline is no longer the great ma¬ 
jority of the race; it is rather “the pro¬ 
portion of those now held in prison,” or 
even some smaller estimate. 

PLEASANT PERDITION. 

And after noting a certain danger that 
the tendency to changing conceptions of 
future punishment may go too far—“the 
‘new hell' is often made so pleasant that 
it is liable to be chosen by bad men as a 
place of residence"—Professor Knight 
concludes with this suggestion. 

The thing to be desired as a remedy for 
the backboneless condition of some 
modern theology is not unlike the good 
old orthodox doctrine of fear and the 
sense of justice executed—less hell be¬ 
come like some of our “reform prisons,” 
which, by unintelligent zeal in goodness, 
are made so comfortable and honorable 
as to fail of the purpose of prisons. Per¬ 
haps, indeed, there is evidence that the 
limits of excess are already reached. For 
a large number of the liberal orthodox, 
while their sympathies are fully alive, and 
they preach God’s infinite tenderness in 
dealing with offenders, yet also as plainly 
and forcibly declare His equal and exact 
justice, the certainty of retribution in this 
world and in the next. Intelligence and 
conscience may be trusted to do the rest— 
that is, on the one hand, to clarify the doc¬ 
trine with reference to mischievous asso- 



IHI! MllllltUltMllllhMMUMMM ilium III 



























456 


BOOK OF TIIE TIMES 


% 

ciations, and on the other to fill and efficient conception of divine govern- 
ont its meaning and give it definite ex- ment. 
pression, and thus to set fortli a proper 

SEEING THE SHADOW OF A SOUL. 


Professor Elmer Gates, a noted scien¬ 
tific psychologist, describes one of his ex¬ 
periments as follows: 

“I have been experimenting with some 
light rays about five octaves above the 
violet—a form of wave energy akin to X 
rays, but about as different from them as 
they are different from sound. This new 
radiant force is invisible when produced 
in an ordinary room, but I succeeded in 
making it visible by projecting it upon a 
wall coated with a substance whose color 
is altered by the action of the rays in ques¬ 
tion. * 

MADE FROM EYES OF BEASTS. 

“This substance was rhodopsin—the 
visual purple of the retina, the seeing 
substance of the eye which light acts 
upon. This rhodopsin I extracted from 
the eyes of freshly slaughtered animals. 
I find that all known inorganic and inani¬ 
mate substances are transparent to this 
force. Unlike the X rays, they will shine 
through metals, bones, and such sub¬ 
stances, which I can hold between the 
tube emitting these rays and the wall 
covered with rhodopsin without their 
casting a shadow, so to speak, or causing 
the color of the wall to be changed over 
the corresponding' area. 

“I find that any living thing, however, 
is opaque to these rays, and that it will 
cast a shadow as long as it retains life. 

“A live rat is placed in a hermetically 
sealed glass tube held in the path of these 


rays and before the sensitized wall. As 
long as the rat remains alive it casts a 
shadow. On killing the animal it is 
found, after a certain lapse of time, that it 
becomes suddenly transparent. 

“At the same instant a shadow having 
precisely the same shape as the animal is 
seen to pass out through the glass tube 
and move upward on the sensitized wall. 

SAW THE SHADOW ASCENDING. 

“Two of my laboratory assistants 
claim to have distinctly seen the shadow 
in the full course of its ascension. As 
soon as we can definitely prove this to 
other scientific men we will have demon¬ 
strated that some organism, presumably 
not atomic, perhaps etheric and capable of 
passing through glass, thus leaves the 
atomic body of an animal. 

“Now, if in any way this escaping 
organism could be caught and made to 
give evidence that it still possessed mind, 
then we would for the first time have an 
inductive laboratory proof of the continu¬ 
ity of life after death.” 

“How do you now account for the 
opaqueness of the living organism under 
these rays, to which all lifeless matter is 
transparent?” the professor was asked. 

ANIMALS DISCHARGE ELECTRIC 
WAVES. 

“I can best answer that after describ¬ 
ing another experiment,” said he. “I 
arranged a room lined throughout with 
sheets of lead—walls, ceiling, and floor. 





PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOI L 


457 


The lead was connected with the earth by 
electric conductors passing through a gal¬ 
vanometer sufficiently sensitive to measure 
the amount of electricitv emitted by any 
person in the room. 

“With this apparatus I demonstrated 
that the body has its every muscle and 
nerve electrically excited whenever exer¬ 
cised. Every muscle and nerve is an elec¬ 
tric conductor. If I lift my arm. thus, 
and keep the muscles tense, they give off 
more electric energy than when kept at 
rest. 

"During exercise of the mind there are 
similar electric discharges into the sur¬ 
rounding atmosphere. By quantitatively 
measuring the electric waves given off by 
a person in mental activity we can effect 
some measurement of that activity. By 
measuring the electric waves given off by 
them you can compare two emotions. If 
you have a more intense emotion of any 
kind than have I. of that same emotion 
you will give off more electric waves while 
exercising that emotion than will I. Thu*, 
if I were to take two brothers separately 
into the lead-lined room, announce to 
each the news that his mother had died, 
the galvanometer would show in whom I 
had excited the strongest emotion of 
grief. This is the first time in the historv 
of psychology that there has been any 
conceivable method of comparing sub¬ 
jective conscious states. 

“But to return to the rat in the tube. 
Mv explanation of its opaqueness while 
alive is this: In any living body there are 
electric waves hurrying in all directions 
through the nerves and muscles. Light 


waves, which are electric waves, cannot 
penetrate such a bundle of electric im¬ 
pulses.* 

"Do you think, then, that the life fluid 
is an electric fluid, as many aver?" 

"I think that life is some unknown re¬ 
sultant of a number of forces of which 
electricity is one. Life or mind is more 
intimately connected with matter through 
electric f ree than through any other.” 

"Do you hope to catch that organism 
which left the dying rat and cast its 
shadow on the wall?" 

"I am unwilling to discuss in detail 
my experiments in these as yet unknown 
fields until after they shall have been fur¬ 
ther investigated by others. 

"If such an experiment can ever be 
successfully made, then biology and 
psychology will have been extended 
across the border without an intervening 
chasm, and the continuity of personal 
identity beyond death will have been 
scientifically demonstrated." 

"W ould that be a scientific proof of the 
immortality of the soul ?” 

"X . it would not demonstrate endless 
existence—merely the continuity of life 
beyond what we call death. 

"The visible animal organism is com- 
p sed of at* mic solids, liquids, and gases. 
May there not be etheric solids. liquids, 
and gases, whose particles are in¬ 
finitesimally smaller than atoms, and 
might there not be an etheric body com¬ 
posed of them, might be asked. Such 
truth could be made a co-ordinate part 
of the growing body of scientific 
knowledge. 

o 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


458 


RAYS OF LIGHT FROM THE HUMAN BODY. 


MARVELS OF THE “N” RAY. 

The N-rays were discovered by M. 
Blondlot, professor of physics at the Uni¬ 
versity of Nancy, who gave them their 
name simply because they were discovered 
at Nancy. 

M. Auguste Charpentier, the colleague 
of M. Blondlot in the laboratory, per¬ 
ceived that every time he brought a phos¬ 
phorescent body near to a human body in 
the dark the phosphorescence of the for¬ 
mer was increased. This led to the dis¬ 
covery that the human body was con¬ 
stantly giving off N-rays. 

M. Charpentier made use of a barium- 
platinum-cyanide screen, rendered slightly 
luminous with salts of radium, covered 
with black paper, and placed at a variable 
distance. He observed that the luminos¬ 
ity or phosphorescence was especially in¬ 
creased along the course of the nerves and 
in proximity to the muscles. The phe¬ 
nomenon Avas observed even when the 
screen Avas held at some distance from the 
body, and when substances Avere inter¬ 
posed, such as aluminum, dry paper, glass, 
etc., which are transparent to the N-rays. 
It ceased when substances which are 
opaque to the N-rays, such as lead, Avet 
paper, etc., Avere interposed between the 
body and the screen. 

M. Charpentier observed that the 
psychomotor areas of the cerebral cortex 
of the brain manifested themselves clearly 
by an emission of N-rays Avhile they Avere 
in activity. One of them is called “the 
centre of Broca,” Avhich is the seat of 
articulated language. While the sub¬ 
ject spoke the screen Avas moved over the 
side of the head, and the phosphorescence 


attained its maximum intensity exactly 
over the centre of Broca. 

Every organ and part of the body, the 
brain, the heart, the nerves, the stomach, 
the lungs, have their characteristic 
radiations which sIioav themselves on a 
fluorescent screen. 

The course of a nerve, the activity of a 
brain centre, are clearly indicated by in¬ 
creased luminosity on the screen. 

Professor Blondlot of the great French 
University of Nancy, Avas the first dis- 
coA^erer of these rays. He found them in 
various inanimate substances and then his 
colleague. Professor Charpentier, of the 
same university, observed their presence 
in the human body. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF 
“N” RAYS. 

The chief characteristic of the N-rays 
is that they excite an increased phos¬ 
phorescence or luminosity in a body that 
is already slightly phosphorescent. 

Professor Charpentier made use of a 
barium-platinum-cyanide screen such as 
has been used in X-ray and radium ex¬ 
periments. This Avas rendered slightly 
phosphorescent by means of a certain 
quantity of radium. 

While moving this screen over the sur¬ 
face of the human body Professor Char¬ 
pentier obsen r ed that the phosphorescence 
increased greatly over the nerves and the 
muscles. The light produced by the mus¬ 
cles was stronger Avhen they Avere con¬ 
tracted. He found that he could follow 
the course of a superficial nerve and its 
various branches with great exactitude by 
the increased phosphorescence. 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE, MIND AND SOUL 


459 


This phenomenon is produced at a very 
considerable distance from the bcdy, and 
also when substances such as aluminum, 
wood, dry paper, glass, etc., are interposed 
between the skin and the screen. It was 
at first suggested that the effect might 
be produced by the increased temperature 
in the vicinity of the body. But when 
several sheets of aluminum and of card¬ 
board, forming successive layers of air 
and completely cutting off any heat from 
the body, were interposed, the rays acted 
just as strongly as ever. 

THEORIES OF THE “N” RAY. 

Another hypothesis was that the body 
might be merely giving out phosphores¬ 
cence acquired by exposure to the sun. It 
is well known that many substances gather 
up phosphorescence from the sun and then 
become visible in the darkness. This is 
exhausted after the substance is kept away 
from the sun for a certain length of time. 
Professor Charpentier remained in the 
dark for nine hours and found that the 
radiations of the human body had not lost 
any of their strength whatever. He con¬ 
cluded that the body is not an accumu¬ 
lator, but a producer of X-rays. 

Doctors have found already that they 
can auscultate the heart by observing the 
X-rays at least as effectively as with the 
usual apparatus, which depends upon the 
sound produced. This is one of the 
earliest practical uses of the discovery, but 
it indicates in ah extremely small degree 
the great uses which medical science ex¬ 
pects to make of the A’-rays. 

The activity of the tissues is indicated 
bv the rays, and each patient will be rep¬ 
resented by a number indicating his 
normal luminosity or X-ray activity. The 


doctor having this will always possess an 
exact guide to the state of the patient’s 
health. 

Prof. Charpentier has made some ex¬ 
tremely interesting experiments upon the 
X-ray activity of the brain centres. He 
has found that the psychomotor areas of 
the brain which direct all our movements 
manifest themselves very clearly by giving 
out X-rays while they are in operation. 
One of the most important brain centres 
is that called Broca's centre, which is the 
seat of articulated speech. Prof. Char¬ 
pentier told his patient to speak freely. 
He found on observing her skull with the 
fluoroscope that the phosphorescence 
reached its maximum intensity exactly 
over Broca’s centre. This centre, by the 
way. is situated on the left side of the 
brain, and no increased luminosity in the 
fluoroscope could be observed at the cor¬ 
responding spot on the right side. 

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE 
“N” RAY. 

Prof. Charpentier carried this intense¬ 
ly interesting experiment further. He 
planned to give his young woman subject 
a sudden fright. While she was sitting 
in his laboratory awaiting with indif¬ 
ference the next experiment his assistant 
suddenly unveiled a grinning skeleton, 
borrowed from the hospital, before her 
eyes. Keeping his eye glued to his fluoro¬ 
scope he at once observed a very sudden 
and violent outbreak of luminosity in a 
certain area of the brain. This was 
clearly the fear centre. 

He was afterward able to locate by 
more or less similar methods the centres 
controlling love, joy, anger, and practi¬ 
cally all the emotions and intellectual 



460 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


faculties. He is constantly pursuing this 
line of investigation and will very shortly 
make known further important observa¬ 
tions. 

He finds that concentrated mental ef¬ 
fort gives rise to a strong and peculiar 
form of radiation, which produces a very 
marked increase in the luminosity of the 
fiuoroscope. This is general over the 
greater part of the brain. Needless to 
say, this is an observation of the greatest 
importance to psychology. 

The professor has found centres that 
correspond with the faculty of writing 
and those that direct the movement of 
the various limbs. Every nervous centre 
gives forth the N-ray in proportion to 
its degree of activity. Nervous activity 
transforms itself partly into radiation, 
which can be exactly measured by the de¬ 
gree of phosphorescence they excite on 
the luminous screen. 

SPECIAL PECULIARITIES. 

Every solid subjected to pressure gives 
out the N-rays. Professor Charpentier 
compressed the 'nerves and found that 
their luminosity became immediately 
much greater. If the compression is pro¬ 
longed the radiation will finally grow less. 

The course of the spinal marrow could 
be traced distinctly bv the increase of 
luminosity, which became much greater 
as the professor approached the base of 
the brain. The luminosity was consider¬ 
ably increased when the backbone was 
rubbed vigorously. The contraction of an 
arm produced increased radiation from 
the backbone near the brain. 

The professor explains that the radia¬ 
tions from the human body are far from 
being composed exclusively of N-rays. 
The radiations are of several kinds and 


very complicated, and they have not all 
been properly defined. The N-rays seem 
always to constitute the majority, but the 
other kinds are very noticeable in the 
radiations given out by the nerves. This 
is proved by the fact that while the N- 
ravs proper pass through aluminum with 
great ease, a considerable proportion of 
the rays from the nerves are stopped by 
the thinnest possible sheet of aluminum— 
nineteen-thousandths of an inch thick. 
Those rays which did pass through the 
aluminum were not impeded in any way 
when a sheet of the metal several inches 
in thickness was interposed. 

SPECIAL RADIATIONS OF MUS¬ 
CLES. 

On the other hand, the heart and the 
larger muscles appear to give out the N- 
rays almost exclusively. It is therefore 
very easy to distinguish between muscu¬ 
lar rays and nervous rays. The nerve 
increases its radiation when it is com¬ 
pressed, but a similar compression of a 
muscle has much less effect. Another 
peculiarity is that the nervous rays pro¬ 
duce a much greater luminosity than the 
muscular rays when the screen is heated 
to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Some of the obscure human rays pene¬ 
trate both lead and water, which are pe¬ 
culiarly opaque to the N-rays proper. 
Others not only pass through the air in a 
straight line, but are conducted by a 
metal wire. Professor Charpentier af¬ 
fixed a metal wire about ten feet in length 
to a small plate of copper an inch and a 
half in diameter. He connected the other 
end of the wire with a phosphorescent 
tube. Then he brought the plate in con¬ 
tact with the human brain, and the phos¬ 
phorescence at the other end of the wire 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOUL 


immediately increased. With this ap¬ 
paratus the doctor can observe the opera¬ 
tion of the rays while remaining at a dis¬ 
tance from his patient, and thus avoid 
the possibility of influencing him. 

All animals emit X-rays. The pro¬ 
fessor has traced the nervous system of a 
frog thoroughly by means of them, and 
as this animal had a very low temperature 
with regard to that of the laboratory this 
experiment furnished another proof that 
heat had nothing to do with the phenome¬ 
non. 

Phosphorescent microbes and glow¬ 
worms, strange to say, behave in much 
the same manner as the phosphorescent 
screen. When they were placed in the 
vicinity of the human heart their luminos¬ 
ity as observed in the darkness increased 
remarkably. All living matter, it ap¬ 
pears. produces X-rays as well as much 
inorganic matter. Fermentation is always 
accompanied by radiation. Vegetable life 
has its peculiar rays. Sound and music 
produce X-rays in abundance. 

WORK OF ANOTHER SCIENTIST. 

Curious to say, another scientist. Dr. 
Baraduc, of Paris, has also observed these 
emanations of the human body, but with¬ 
out studying them by the same methods 
applied to radium rays and the X-rays, 
and without recognizing clearly that they 
are radiations allied to these. Xeverthe- 
less, he has devised a very interesting in¬ 
strument for observing them. 

It consists of two glass jars, in each of 
which a magnet is suspended. T nder the 
magnet, in each jar. there is a cosmo¬ 
gonic chart invented by the doctor. It 
describes, in the circle of 360 degrees and 
numerous subdivisions, parallels and 
squares, the amount and direction of vital 


401 


forces as studied and compared by him 
with infinite patience and countless ex¬ 
periments. The movements of the mag¬ 
netic needles when in your proximity in¬ 
dicate certain figures on the chart, which 
the doctor notes, and which you can af¬ 
terward compare yourself, according to 
set formulas which he has established. 

In order to make an experiment, he 
simply sets the two jars before you. sepa¬ 
rated about three inches from each other. 
You place your right hand within an 
inch or two of the right-hand jar. and the 
left hand similarly within an inch or two 
of the left-hand jar. Within a minute 
or two you see the needles begin to move. 
They continue to move for a while, and 
after three or four minutes come to rest 
at a fixed point. They may have advanced 
and gone back—in other words, oscillated 
between certain points, or moved directly 
to the point they hold. All this is noted 
by the doctor and he proceeds to give you 
the explanation. 

The human body, he says, is surrounded 
not only by a magnetic fluid, but also by 
a vital fluid. The vital fluid acts upon the 
needle through the magnetic fluid, and 
gives you exactly the amount and the 
various kinds and degrees of vital energies 
that you possess. The right side, you will 
find, represents what he calls the physical 
energies, the left side the mental energies 
The two forces also correspond to the 
positive and negative poles of the magnet. 

SEEING THE MIND THROUGH 
THE “N” RAY. 

To look through the skull of a man and 
see the workings of his mind is an 
achievement hitherto undreamed of. Yet 
that is exactly what Prof. Blondlot of 



462 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Paris has succeeded in doing by the aid 
of the newly discovered N-rays. 

It is a matter perfectly simple, the in¬ 
strument employed being nothing more 
complicated than a small rectangular 
piece of pasteboard (the size of a playing 
card), one end of which is spread with a 
paste of phosphorescent sulphate of cal¬ 
cium. This substance, it appears, is made 
luminous by rays of the “N” description. 

When such a card in a darkened room 
is applied to a man's head it does some 
very remarkable things. The person un¬ 
der experiment is told to talk, and he 
keeps on talking, while the bit of paste¬ 
board is brought into contact with various 
parts of his cranium. It shows no 
change until a certain area on the side of 
the head is reached, when suddenly the 
luminosity of the paste becomes greatly 
increased. And why? Simply because 
this is the area of brain surface which con¬ 
trols vocal speech. In working it gives 
off (in a way presently to be explained) 
a flood of N-rays, which cause the sul¬ 
phate of calcium to shine. 

But this is not all. Prof. Blondlot has 
found that by passing the card slowly 
over the head and watching the variation 
of the shine he can outline with perfect 
accuracy the vocal speech area of the 
brain surface. Of course, the man must 
talk all the time, so as to keep the speech 
centre working, else the card would cease 
to give indications. 

As everybody knows, it is the gray 
stuff, forming the surface layer of the 
brain, that does the thinking and controls 
the physical activities. Apparently this 
layer is divided up into patches, each of 
which has its separate function for speak¬ 
ing, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and 


directing the movements of the various 
muscles of the body. Chiefly by vivisec¬ 
tion experiments on monkeys and dogs 
these patches on the human “cerebrum” 
have been approximately located, but by 
the use of the sulphate of calcium card 
they can now be definitely outlined. 

Thus, by the help of an entirely new 
means, the living human brain is to be 
accurately mapped. For the card can be 
used as satisfactorily for outlining other 
cerebral areas as for determining the lo¬ 
cation and limits of the speech centre. All 
that is necessary is that the person under 
experiment should listen intently to music, 
say, and the phosphorescent stuff will 
shine brightly when brought close to the 
part of his skull beneath which lies the 
centre of hearing. It is the same way 
with the other sense centres, activity of 
any one of which causes an outflow of 
N-rays. 

AUREOLES AND HALOS. 

When, about a century ago, Reichen- 
bach, a scientist of high reputation, 
claimed that he could sometimes see a 
sort of aureole, or halo, about the heads 
of people in the dark, it was supposed that 
he was the victim of an hallucination, but 
it is at least conceivable that the phe¬ 
nomenon was due to an emanation of N- 
rays, which may, under certain circum¬ 
stances, become visible to the eye. 

Another theory that has been suggested 
is that possibly the N-rays may be ac¬ 
countable for the phenomena of telepa¬ 
thy or thought transference, by which 
ideas are conveyed from one person to 
another, even at a distance, without 
speech, writing, or the use of any 
ordinary means of communication. That 



PROBLEMS OE LIFE, MIND AXD SOUL 


403 


such messages sometimes pass from mind 
to mind is a fact proved beyond question, 
though nobody as yet has been able to as¬ 
certain the agency by which the mental 
telegraphy is accomplished. 

All of the nerve centres of the human 
body,-when in a condition of activity, emit 
N-rays. When the brain, which is the 
greatest of nerve centres, is working, its 
activity can be made to show itself by 
the use of a card, such as the one already 
described. It is placed in contact with 
the forehead, and the person under experi¬ 
ment is asked to think hard and to stop 
thinking at intervals, without telling 
which he is doing. The card shows every 
time by its brightening—of course, the 
trial is made in a darkened room—when 
the mind is busy; when it is idle, the sul¬ 
phate of calcium becomes dim. 

STRANGE RADIATIONS OF 
BODIES. 

Not only the nerves, hut the muscles 
of the body, give off N-rays when under 
tension. Apparently, the human body 
stores these rays, and it is the same way 
with the lower animals, such as dogs, 
rabbits and frogs. Inanimate substances 
of certain kinds, such as glass and quartz, 
exhibit the same phenomenon, hut wood, 
paper and aluminum do not possess the 
property. One great source of the rays 
is the sun, and some of the objects on 
which they fall become saturated with 
them. When any one of these objects is 
subjected to strain, it emits the rays. 

Thus, when a piece of glass or iron is 
bent or subjected to pressure it gives out 
N-rays. Tempered steel, owing to the 
arrangement of the particles composing 
it, is at all times in a state of strain, and 


on that account is continually giving off" 
the rays. Nor does the period during 
which it may do this appear to have any 
limit, a sword blade of the time of Char¬ 
lemagne being found by Prof. Blondlot to 
exhibit the phenomenon. Silver, lead and 
glass are first-rate storage receptacles, so 
to speak, for N-rays. They will not 
pass through pure water, which is so 
opaque to them that a cigarette paper 
moistened with fresh water will stop 
them. On the other hand, salt water is 
perfectly transparent to them, and so like¬ 
wise are wood and quartz, as well as rock 
salt. 

The rays have no effect on the photo¬ 
graphic plate. They are not visible to the 
eye, unless under conditions not yet as¬ 
certained. In other words, they produce 
no sensation of light. Nevertheless, when 
they are thrown upon your eye, in a half- 
darkened room, objects in view become 
more clearly visible. They appear also 
in some mysterious way to increase the 
acuteness of the senses of taste, smell 
and hearing. 

W hen, in a half-darkened room, the 
blade of a knife is placed near the eve of 
the observer, the N-rays emitted by it 
enable him to see objects more clearly. If 
it he applied to the side of the head, the 
distinctness of objects seen is augmented. 
These are only one or two of Prof. Blond- 
lot's recent experiments which, when car¬ 
ried further, may he expected to yield 
some astonishing results. He has found 
that the rays can he transmitted by a 
copper wire, which makes a first-rate con¬ 
ductor for them. Thus, if they have any 
relation to telepathy, the time may yet 
arrive when thoughts can he telegraphed. 

The N-rays are a part of the invisible 




46-t 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


sunshine. They belong among the rays 
in the extreme “ultra-violet,” far beyond 
the upper end of the visible solar spec¬ 
trum. By means of his wonderful in¬ 
strument called the “bolometer,” Prof. 
S. P. Langley has succeeded in making a 
photographic chart of the region of in¬ 
visible light beyond the violet, and has 
pursued his exploration in this direction 
so far that the path he has covered rep¬ 
resents a distance of thirty feet on a scale 
in which the visible spectrum of colors, 
as thrown by a big prism, is only three 
feet long. The prism is of rock salt, 
mathematically cut. this material being 
transparent to the ultra-violet rays, 
whereas the clearest glass is opaque to 
them. In the region of unknown colors 
thus explored lie the wonderful N-rays. 
Prof. Langley has turned his “bolometer” 
upon them, and it may be that before long 
something much more definite than is now 
known may come to be understood about 
them and concerning curious phenomena 
for which they are accountable. 

THOUGHT RAYS DISCOVERED. 

After X rays, N rays; after N rays, I 
rays. 1 rays proceed from the brain. 
They are thought rays. They were dis¬ 
covered by M. di Brazza, student at 
Liege, when repeating the N ray experi¬ 
ments of Professor Charpentier. Charpen- 
tier found that the phosphorescence of 
certain substances is increased when they 


are brought close to a nerve or to a con¬ 
tracting muscle. When some one talks 
variations are produced in the luminosity 
of calcium phosphate. In another experi¬ 
ment Charpentier saw the phosphorescent 
substance shine all down the line of its 
application to the spinal cord. Charpen¬ 
tier concluded that the emission of rays 
goes pari passu with activity of function, 
which puts us in possession of a new 
method of studying nerves and muscles. 
Di Brazza now claims to demonstrate 
what Charpentier surmised—to-wit: that 
the “brain is the seat of active radiation.” 
'Fhe I rays differ from the N rays in that 
they can pass through moist substances 
and are not bent nor refracted. Di Brazza 
observes them directly and indirectly. In 
direct observation he applies a phosphor¬ 
escing screen treated with platinocyanide 
of ba or other phosphorescent substances 
to the patient's head. The screen is 
faintly illuminated by a radiographic tube 
inclosed in a wooden box. When the 
subject concentrates his will, curious oscil¬ 
lations appear in the luminosity of the 
screen in relation with the patient’s 
psychical activity. When his attention is 
not concentrated the light does not flicker. 
The rays are not emitted equally from all 
parts of the head. They are nill at the 
forehead, increase at the temple and eyes, 
and are at their maximum behind the 
ears. The I rays are named for Italy. 


CRYSTAL GAZING. 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL RIDDLE. account of a seance during which a 
When seventy years ago the oriental Mughrebee magician summed visions 
scholar, Edward William Lane, published in a crystal of people whom the writer 
his “Manners and Customs of the Modern recognized from description. His curi- 
Egyptians” surprise was caused by his osity regarding this subject had first been 







Tramway cars and wheelbarrows loaded with eggs at the rookery of sea gnlls in the Hawaiian Islands. From these eggs albumen is manu¬ 
factured. It is used in fixing the colors in calico printing, clarifying ropy sirups, and in photography. 











466 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


roused by hearing from the British consul 
general that a servant who defrauded 
him, and of whom no suspicion had been 
entertained, was described from a vision 
seen in the crystal, and on being charged 
with the theft had confessed his crime. 

Possibly Mr. Lane was unaware that 
the same means of detection was com¬ 
mon in England until “the wisest fool in 
Christendom,” James I, passed laws mak¬ 
ing crystal gazing a serious and punish¬ 
able offense. At all events, the English 
traveler desired to see for himself the 
reputed marvels of the magician. The 
latter, a green turbaned follower of the 
prophet, being sought and found, agreed 
to exhibit wonders which were due, said 
he, to the agency of good spirits. 
Though he could summon visions, they 
could be seen only by a young boy, whom 
Mr. Lane was allowed to select, and who 
was summoned by him from a group of 
lads playing in the street outside. 

The crystal in this case was represented 
by some ink placed in the boy's right hand 
and in the centre of a magic square that 
had been traced there. Incantations were 
then chanted, frankincense and coriander 
seed were flung upon burning charcoal, 
when the lad, with every appearance of 
fright, began to describe the figures he 
saw reflected in the ink. It must be borne 
in mind that their entrances and exits 
were made at the command of .the 
magician. When he bade the lad to sum¬ 
mon the sultan, that august person ap¬ 
peared riding on a horse, surrounded by 
soldiers, etc. 

HISTORICAL INCIDENT. 

When many scenes had come and gone, 
Lane was asked if there was any person 


living or dead whom he wished the boy 
to see. He named Lord Nelson. The de¬ 
scription of what followed is best given 
in his own words: “The boy then said 
a messenger is gone, and has returned 
and brought ‘a man dressed in a black 
suit of European clothes; the man has 
lost his left arm.' He then paused for a 
moment or two, and, looking more in¬ 
tently into the ink, said, ‘No, he has not 
lost his left arm, but it is placed to his 
breast.’ This correction made his de¬ 
scription more striking than it had been 
without it, since Lord Nelson generally 
had his empty sleeve attached to the 
breast of his coat; but it was the right 
arm he had lost. Without saying that I 
suspected the boy had made a mistake, I 
asked the magician whether the objects 
appeared in the ink as if actually before 
the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes 
the right appear left. He answered that 
they appeared as in a mirror. This ren¬ 
dered the boy’s description faultless.” Mr. 
Lane declared himself puzzled by this 
seance, especially when a present was re¬ 
fused that he offered to the boy on the 
condition that he confess to imposture 
Out of deference to the skepticism of the 
English public of that day he ends his ac¬ 
count by hoping the reader will not allow 
it to prejudice his mind with respect to 
other portions of the book. 

MODERN VIEWS OF BLACK 
MAGIC. 

Nowadays, when after thousands of 
years man is beginning to gain some 
glimpse into his own nature, it would be 
as reasonable to credit this vision to magic 
as to believe that thunder was the threat¬ 
ening voices of wrathful gods. All phe- 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


467 


nomena are due to laws of nature, though 
many of the laws are not yet understood. 
The visions described by Mr. Lane are 
explainable on the ground of hypnotism 
and telepathy. Any mesmerist or hypo- 
tist is able to make a subject see, hear, 
taste, or feel in obedience to suggestions. 
It is unnecessary that a subject should be 
asleep or unconscious in order to secure 
his obedience. Slight states of hypnosis 
are readily induced in many persons either 
by themselves or others without their 
knowledge, but are quite sufficient for 
purposes of suggestion. 

Inducements to hypnosis, which are 
used in all forms of so-called magical 
rites, are the monotonous repetition of 
chanted verses, the burning of incense, 
and the continuous stare at any object. 
These induced the hypnotic state in the 
boy, who saw what the magician desired 
him to see; just as the subjects of any 
hypnotic entertainer see or hear whatever 
he suggests. It was probable that neither 
the magician nor the boy had ever seen 
Nelson or his portrait: from which it may 
be argued that it would be impossible for 
the former to make the latter see a figure 
of which he had no conception. But the 
imag^e of Nelson was in Mr. Lane's mind, 
which communicated itself to that of 
the boy, which in turn flung its reflection 
into the shining surface of the ink, or 
visualized it, as it is called. 

That such mental communication is 
possible without conscious effort of the 
mind, or without physical touch, can be 
proved by any one. if personal experi¬ 
ence has not made the trial unnecessary, 
or if not convinced by the evidence in 
favor of it, largely due to the labors of 
Sir Oliver Lodge, and published in the 


proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research in London. It is now within 
the power of this factor of the human 
mind to explain many of the occurrences 
that for centuries have puzzled the skepti¬ 
cal, and been set down by the mass to the 
supernatural. 

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS OF MEN¬ 
TAL PHENOMENA. 

Possibly the most logical, clear, and 
concise analyses of telepathy will be 
found in Dr. Hudson's “Law of Psychic 
Phenomena." Briefly speaking, his 
theory, now widely accepted by the scien¬ 
tific world, is that the human mind is dual 
in its nature; the upper, or objective 
mind being the means by which we rea¬ 
son and conduct the business of life; 
while the lower, or subjective mind, is 
the storehouse of memory, where every 
circumstance of life from the dawn of 
reason is carefully chronicled and remem¬ 
bered, though forgotten by the objective 
mind. The subjective mind of one in¬ 
dividual is capable of sending messages to 
the subjective mind of another without 
the objective mind of either being aware 
of the fact. Such messages are called 
intuitions. 

It is also possible for the subjective 
mind of one person to be read and inte** 
preted by another subjective mind when a 
state of passivity or hypnosis is induced in 
the objective mind of one or other, or of 
both. This state is induced consciously or 
unconsciously by all readers of fate and 
fortune, while they remain perfectly quiet 
and stare at a pack of cards spread out on 
a table, at a crystal, or the leaves in a tea¬ 
cup. At such times they are. as is within 
the experience of most people, able to 
read the events of the past, give names 




468 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


and descriptions of the living or the dead, 
all of which are found in the subjective 
minds of those who consult them. 

It is this subjective mind that finds the 
hidden pin, reads the number of the en¬ 
veloped bank note, writes messages 
through the planchette, or, by automatic 
writing, gives the description of the writ¬ 
ers of letters, or the surroundings of some 
object handed to the psychometrist, all 
information given being known and read 
from the mind of some one present, when 
the power is exhibited. It is also the sub¬ 
jective mind that, drawing from the rich 
stores of its memories, delineates the char- 

ARE WE POSSESSED OF 

ONE OF MANY MARVELOUS 
CASES ON RECORD. 

The “Strange Case ot Dr. Jekyll and 
Mr. Hyde" was no mystery at all com¬ 
pared with the case of a young girl in 
England, who is said to possess at least 
a dozen different souls. 

When this young girl was twelve years 
old she was attacked by influenza and 
some form of brain disease. Since that 
time (she is now eighteen) she has com¬ 
pletely changed her personality again and 
again. 

No doctor can explain the mystery. 
The girl will suddenly begin to jerk her 
arms and shake violently. Then, with a 
quick start, she will look up and become 
an entirely different person. Some of her 
different personalities have been as fol¬ 
lows : 

( t ) A modest, well-behaved, ordi¬ 
nary girl. 

(2) A noisy, bold child, talking in 
broken language, like a three-year-old 
child. 


actors and develops the plots of novelists, 
many of whom state that when writing 
words seem dictated to them, or that their 
puppets work out their destiny irre¬ 
spective of control; while painters some¬ 
times confess to working under an in¬ 
fluence outside themselves. The influence 
is inside themselves in the subjective 
mind, which is enabled to give out of the 
fullness of its treasures, while the ob¬ 
jective mind is made passive by staring 
at paper or canvas. It is also the subject¬ 
ive mind that flashes the whole panorama 
of his life upon the dying man. 

MORE THAN ONE SOUL? 

(3) A very had-tempered but clever 
girl, able to read and write. 

(4) A deaf and dumb girl. 

(5) A clever and sweet-tempered 
girl, who was very fond of learning to 
speak French. 

(6) An insane, blind girl, who had 
great skill in drawing. 

(7) A violent and cruel girl, who de¬ 
lighted in causing pain to her younger 
sister. 

(8) A self-willed but not cruel girl, 
who was very disobedient and reckless. 

Sometimes one of these “souls" would 
rule the girl for months, and sometimes 
only for a week or so. The deaf-mute 
“soul" ruled her five different times. 

Each “soul" has no memory of what 
the other “souls" have said and done. 
Nothing that the doctors can do can pre¬ 
vent these extraordinary changes of self 
in the young girl. Even the London 
Lancet, the most conservative of Enelish 

o 

medical journals, has called attention to 
her case. 







PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIND AND SOUL 


4fi9 


Can it be true, as these facts seem to 
indicate, that one individual can have 
more than a dozen souls? 

A problem like this shows how much 
we have yet to learn in some branches of 
knowledge. Psychology, which should 
be able to explain it, is dumb when con¬ 
fronted with such cases. The wise and 
the thoughtless alike can do no more than 
speculate and imagine. 

We know that a child may take the na¬ 
ture of its great-great-grandfather or 
some other of its ancestors. May it not 
be possible for a child to take the nature 
of a number of these ancestors? 

Perhaps a human mind may have doz¬ 
ens or hundreds of facets, like a diamond 


or the eye of a fly. Every facet may mean 
a new personality. 

Perhaps there may be some means, un¬ 
known to us, of cutting a mind free from 
that chain of habit which we cali char¬ 
acter or personality and binding it at once 
with new chains. 

This case is so unusual that we are 
compelled to end with a perhaps. We can 
only regard it with the same ignorant 
amazement that a Hottentot feels when 
he sees an automobile. 

It convinces us that, although the mys¬ 
teries of the universe are many, man has 
never yet found a greater mystery than 
himself. 


OUR DUAL PERSONALITY. 


Experiments by a large number of spe¬ 
cialists in mental and nervous diseases 
have settled ljeyond any doubt the exist¬ 
ence of a mental condition called the dual 
personality in man. 

Though this condition is sickly, the 
foundation for it is nevertheless present 
in every human being. 

All our actions may, as everybody can 
prove by personal observation, be classi¬ 
fied in two groups—those which are con¬ 
trolled by the will and those which are 
not. 

We are. at the same time, thinking and 
willing beings, and automatons. 

When a man walks along the street 
reading a newspaper he will walk in a 
certain direction, evade collisions with 
other people and wagons, perhaps open 
or close his umbrella or button his coat 
without thinking of these actions, which 
are performed absolutely automatically 
while his mind is busy with other things. 


People who are very familiar with 
music may continue humming or whist¬ 
ling a tune which they have once begun, 
while their thoughts are far away, and 
only become conscious of the fact when 
they have finished the tune. 

This automatic being in us, who per¬ 
forms all sorts of actions without think¬ 
ing and without being controlled by the 
brain, may, under certain sickly condi¬ 
tions of the brain, become absolutely in¬ 
dependent of the latter. 

Hysterics, epilepsy, somnambulism are 
conditions of this kind which may effect 
a separation of the dual personality, and 
in aggravated cases entirely suppress the 
conscious personality and become his 
dominating part. 

The parable of the upper and lower 
storey used by Frederic Theodor Vischer 
to illustrate another side of our mental 
life applies very well to this. 




470 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


A PECULIAR CASE. 

A prominent physician tells of one of 
his patients who always lost his way in 
the streets if he tried to think of the right 
way to go, but who always found his way 
home automatically if his mind was oc¬ 
cupied with other things. 

Certain disturbances of speech which 
manifest themselves in reiteration of cer¬ 
tain words and sentences belong in the 
same class. 

The separation of the dual personality 
may also be caused by lesions of the brain 
caused by a fall or a blow on the head. 

The actions caused by hypnotic sug¬ 
gestions are especially interesting, be¬ 
cause the will power of one person takes 
absolute control of all the actions of an¬ 
other who becomes absolutely powerless 
and may remain so even a long time after 
the end of the hypnotic condition. This, 
of course, is an abnormal and sickly con¬ 
dition, but there are transitory stages 
leading up to it which may be observed 
in everyday life and which are absolutely 
normal. 

HYPNOTIC POWER. 

All persuasion, all advice followed, are 
really nothing but mental suggestions and 
victories over the will of another person. 

Every hypnotist must also continually 
strive to gradually gain influence over the 
persons whom he wants to treat. 

If you let a person close his eyes and 


say to him : “I command you to be una¬ 
ble to open your eyes, and you will not he 
able to do so,” you will almost invariably 
find the experiment a failure. 

The step is too sudden and abrupt, and 
the person experimented with will, in the 
deciding moment, reason with himself, 
“Why should I not he able to do it?” and 
it would not be possible to conquer this 
resistance of his will. 

An experienced hypnotist will then ask 
the person if he did not find it more dif¬ 
ficult than usual to open his eyes, and if 
this is conceded he will build further on 
this admission until he finally arrives at a 
point where he has the other person com¬ 
pletely in his power. 

The fact that the greater number of 
nervous people are easily influenced by 
others of stronger will power has made it 
possible to cure many of them entirely by 
suggestion, though there is no doubt that 
their will power is weakened thereby and 
the separation of the dual personality lia¬ 
ble to take place with alarming frequency 
and ease. 

Psychologists and physicians are still 
battling with the problem of these two 
souls in man and gaining wonderful in¬ 
sight into the deepest recesses of our men¬ 
tal activity, but as yet, though we can no 
longer deny the presence in ourselves of 
these two souls, their relations are not 
entirely clear. 


LOST IDENTITY. 


THE STRANGE PSYCHICAL MAL¬ 
ADY OF MODERN LIFE.— MAR¬ 
VELOUS EXAMPLES. 

“What are the causes of apparently 
healthy persons suddenly losing their 
identity?” was a question which a cele¬ 


brated English brain specialist dealt with 
recently in the hope that the results of his 
researches and his advice might prove of 
benefit to the public. 

The physician recalled some remarka¬ 
ble cases of what are known as “psychical 






PROBLEMS OF LIFE, MIXD AXD SOUL 


471 


changes” which have recently come to his 
notice, including the experience of a gen¬ 
tleman who a few days ago entered the 
Record office in Chancery lane and an¬ 
nounced to an astonished official that ‘‘he 
did not know who he was, as he had lost 
his memory." 

Another case was that of a young lady 
who wandered from her home at Clacton 
to Finsbury, a distance of thirty miles, 
and furnished to the police at the latter 
place a name which she “thought” to he 
her father's. A telegram, however, sent to 
that address was returned “unknown." 

A third illustration of these curious 
psychological phenomena was that of a 
clergyman who. after withdrawing from 
his bank a substantial sum of money with 
which to complete the purchase of a piece 
of land, entered a tramway car. From 
that moment his mind became a blank, 
and he wandered 500 miles to a large 
town, where with the money he bought 
a stationer's shop and erected a sign bear¬ 
ing the name of “Brown. 

After six weeks a customer entered, 
and. addressing the man behind the coun¬ 
ter as Brown, proceeded to purchase some 
small articles of stationery. The pro¬ 
prietor replied that his name was not 
Brown, but Bourne, and that he knew 
nothing about the business. 

“The man had suddenly awakened 
from his prolonged lapse of memory,’ 
added the physician. 

No less remarkable was the case of a 
London man who traveled to Leeds to 
fill a situation which he had been very 
anxious to obtain. He had a brief and 
satisfactory interview with his employer, 
and then went to look for lodgings. The 
next thing the man remembered was be¬ 


ing in a train at Grantham on his way 
back to London. 

The strange feature of this case was 

that the unconscious man had carefullv 

* 

and accurately relabeled his luggage for 
the address he had previously occupied in 
London. 

“As a matter of fact,” explained the 
physician, “these persons behave in quite 
a rational way. although they are really 
unconscious all the time. They spend 
money carefully, and eat and sleep with 
their customary regularity. They are but 
partly mentally deficient. 

“The brain is commonly regarded as a 
single organ. It is in reality a collection 
of parts, different and distinct, but close¬ 
ly related to one another, and connected 
with every portion of the body by nerves. 
In non-technical phraseology, certain of 
these cerebral subdivisions become im¬ 
paired where cases of ‘lost identity’ occur. 

SPECIAL CASES OF PARTIAL IN¬ 
SANITY. 

“In cases where the sight of a printed 
word fails to revive memory, the disease 
is known as ‘word blindness,’ and in¬ 
stances when a word spoken is not appre- 
dated, but the same word written stimu¬ 
lates the memory, are known as ‘word 
deafness.’ The latter patients are unable 
to utter a sound, and yet can write very 
intelligent letters. The auditory word- 
centre of the brain refuses to act. 

“Again, there are cases where people 
are not capable of either speaking or writ¬ 
ing the words which they nevertheless re¬ 
member. Hence the large number of lost 
persons who cannot furnish the authori¬ 
ties with their own names. 

“Very common are the cases where 




472 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


persons forget events that have just oc¬ 
curred and yet retain excellent impres¬ 
sions of things that happened years ago 
and impart knowledge which was ac¬ 
quired in their childhood and had long 
been forgotten. One man who was pro¬ 
fessionally treated could not remember 
his own name, but could recite whole 
chapters of the Bible. 

“The development of many of these 
cases could be checked,” proceeded the 
doctor, “if their friends sought timely ad¬ 
vice. ‘Memory’ is regulated by the 
amount of attention which a person is 
able at the time to give to the subject to 
be remembered. This power of attention 
is greatly diminished by disease. An ill- 
nourished body implies an ill-nourished 
brain. Malnutrition is a frequent cause 

TRAVELING 

WHEN PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED 
FROM LOSS OF MEMORY. 

On April 27, 1903, an Antwerp police¬ 
man was startled out of his usual self-pos¬ 
session by a man who approached him and 
asked in good Dutch, “What town is 
this?” 

The officer at first thought that he was 
being made a fool of, but it very soon be¬ 
came clear that his interrogator was quite 
in earnest. The man had a dazed appear¬ 
ance. and though well dressed seemed un¬ 
set and unhappy. 

The policeman, concluding that the 
man was a lunatic, got him to accompany 
him to a hospital where the doctor, how¬ 
ever, pronounced him perfectly sane. 

The wanderer's name was John Don- 
hauser, and his story was that he was a 
native of Antwerp, but had emigrated 


of brain failure and consequent ‘loss of 
identity.’ 

“Various fevers, influenza, and all 
kinds of mental shock and blows upon 
the head may have these unfortunate re¬ 
sults. Overwork, especially when accom¬ 
panied by business worries or domestic 
anxiety, is a factor to be reckoned with. 
But, above all, the persons most liable to 
sudden ‘loss of identity’ are those of an 
epileptic tendency, although it is difficult 
to reconcile a protracted lapse of memory 
with this cause.” 

No fewer than 34,000 persons are 
“lost” in London every year, and Scot¬ 
land Yard has been called upon to deal 
with as many as 2,000 such cases in the 
course of a week. 

IN TRANCES. 

twenty years before to America, where 
he had made his home in Milwaukee. 

On March 15th he had left Milwaukee 
for Chicago. After that he remembered 
nothing more until he found himself 
walking in the street where he had met 
the policeman. 

Inquiries proved his account to be per¬ 
fectly true, and the only explanation was 
that he had fallen into a sort of-walking- 
trance. He was assisted to a homeward- 
bound steamer and left immediately for 
New York. 

THE LOST LADY OF THREAD- 
NEEDLE STREET. 

But his troubles were not over yet. On 
the way across the Atlantic he fell into a 
second trance, and when he arrived at his 
destination he woke again to find that he 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIND AND SOUL 


473 


had been in the Government Hospital for 
three weeks. 

Such cases of brain lapse are not so 
rare as may be imagined, though they 
have never been satisfactorily explained. 
The famous case of the “lost lady of 
Threadneedle Street/' is. perhaps, the 
best known of recent events of this de¬ 
scription. 

One morning a few years back, just be¬ 
fore noon, the police found a little old 
lady wandering aimlessly about Thread- 
needle Street in the city of London. She 
was dressed in a gray dress, a gaudily 
trimmed green straw hat, a startling 
green ribbon round her waist, and was 

o 

followed by a crowd of loiterers. 

When taken to the police station there 
was found upon her $35,000 in bank 
notes, and magnificent jewelry, valued at 
$10,000 more. She had lost her memory 
completely, and it was not for some days 
that her identity was discovered through 
her sister. 

MEMORY GOES WHILE CYCLING. 

Another very peculiar case of the same 
sort which also happened about two years 
ago was that of Miss Maud Pryce. the 
sixteen-year-old daughter of a New Cross 
painter. She started out one Wednesday 
morning in her usual health for a cycle 
ride, but in the evening did not return 
home. 

It was not until the next day that her 
parents heard that she had been found 
wheeling through Tunbridge Wells. She 
had forgotten who she was, where she 
lived, and in fact every incident of her 
past life. 

Taken home again she was unable to 
recognize her relatives, vet was able to 


recall distinctly everything that had hap¬ 
pened since the morning of Thursday. 
She had not forgotten how to read, for 
she was much amused by the accounts 
given of her experience in the news¬ 
papers. 

She had ridden thirty-two miles on the 
day of her cycling trip, yet as to the in¬ 
cidents of the day she could only remem¬ 
ber two things, one asking a man in a 
passing trap to tell her the time, the other 
inquiring later in the day where the road 
she was on led to. 

MIND A BLANK FOR SEVENTEEN 
YEARS. 

Such lapses of memory have some¬ 
times very serious consequences. A ser¬ 
geant of the Royal Medical Corps was 
recently court-martialed at Dover on a 
charge of absenting himself without leave 
for a period of three weeks. 

In the evidence it came out that during 
the whole of this time the unfortunate 
man had absolutely no recollection of 
what he had been doing, or where he had 
spent his time, until at last he found him¬ 
self in his brother's house at London. It 
was said that he had suffered severely 
from fever on the West Coast of Africa 
and Hfeen invalided home. 

Three weeks is, however, a trifling 
period of forgetfulness, compared with 
the seventeen years’ lapse of memory of 
Francis Washburn, a painter, of 50 
Charles street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. 
In many respects this is the most peculiar 
case of its kind ever investigated by men¬ 
tal specialists. 

Born in i860 on a farm, young Wash¬ 
burn lived a quiet country life until he 
was twenty-four. 



474 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


In the year 1884 he was traveling by 
rail to Denver, when the train went off 
the line, and Washburn was thrown some 
distance on his head. When he awoke 
in hospital all memory of his past life had 
absolutely vanished. Papers in his 
pocket, however, gave his name and ad¬ 
dress, and he went home. 

By the time he was well again his fam¬ 
ily had become familiar to him. and 
neither he nor they realized that there 
was anything special the matter'with him. 

For five years he worked up and down 
the country he was born in, and then 
twelve years ago went to his present 
home and took up business as a painter 
and paperhanger. He married and had 
four children. His wife declares there 
never was a better husband and father. 

When his eldest girl was nine, one 
night she dropped a lamp chimney. It 
fell with a crash at her father's feet, giv¬ 
ing him a severe shock. He fell to the 
floor unconscious. 

Next morning Washburn awoke to 
find a doctor and his wife bending over 
him. His first words were: “What hos¬ 
pital am I in? Were many hurt?” He 
imagined that he was just recovering con¬ 
sciousness after the train accident of sev¬ 
enteen years before. • 

Tbe whole of the past seventeen years 
had slipped away from his mind and 
memory, and he then had to begin life 


mentally all over again from the age of 
twenty-four. 

ANNUAL LAPSES OF MEMORY. 

The causes of these peculiar trances are 
sometimes very curious. Jules Roux, a 
sixteen-year-old French boy, was found 
one day last April wandering about Paris 
in a half-starved condition. He was cpiite 
unable to give any account of himself or 
say where he had come from. 

A week later he recovered his memory 
and told the hospital authorities that his 
home was near Rouen. Three years be¬ 
fore he had been bitten by a dog and was 
terribly frightened and injured. 

Each Spring since at the same date he 
has for a time lost his memory. But how 
he reached Paris, whether on foot or by 
rail, he has not the faintest idea. 

Another strange peculiarity about 
some people in such a peculiar mental 
state is their ability to bear pain. There 
recently arrived at the town of Starsbiel- 
stey, in the Province of Khaikoff, in Rus¬ 
sia, a peasant named Plotnikoff, whose 
hand had been cut off with a chopper. 

The man had gone into a fit of re¬ 
ligious frenzy in which he had literally 
obeyed the Biblical instruction, “If thy 
hand offend thee cut it off.” I11 this mis¬ 
erable state he had walked over fifteen 
miles to the town where he was found 
and taken to the hospital. 


EXTRAORDINARY MORAL INSANITY. 

Jane Toppan, the poisoner of 31 per- is believed to be near her end. Until 
sons, after 2j4 years' confinement in the within a short period the visitor to the 
insane hospital at Taunton, Mass., is ap- hospital was unable to observe even the 
proaching—has reached—the secondary least trace of insanity. The question used 
stage of her ailment, moral insanity, and to be asked, “Why is she here? She 





Pens at the Chicago Stock Yards showing distribution of individual lots of cattle. 










































476 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


seems to be as sane as her attendants.” 
But now her mental delusions are fre¬ 
quent, almost constant, and were any one 
outside to see her there would be no doubt 
of the appropriateness of her incarcera¬ 
tion. 

She has abandoned the careless, cheer¬ 
ful frame of mind in which she has here¬ 
tofore been and is now fretful, peevish, 
even ugly, faultfinding, fearful of eating 
because of suspected poison, complaining 
of her treatment, morose—everything 
but remorseful. The intellectual insanity, 
following the moral insanity with which 
it is now believed Jane Toppan has been 
afflicted from birth, will in all probability 
result in her death, possibly within a 
twelvemonth. She has dwindled to al¬ 
most a skeleton. 

Dr. R. H. Stedman, of Boston, one of 
the three alienists upon whose certificate 
the woman was committed, and who has 
made her case a study ever since, says: 
“In this after history we find brought into 
bold relief the inherent, underlying defect 
of weakmindedness which was noted, but 
only obscurely seen earlier for want of 
opportunity for proper observation, and 
also the outgrowth therefrom of pro¬ 
nounced intellectual change in the shape 
of positive delusions. These, together 
with the other and characteristic mani¬ 
festations, afford the strongest confirma¬ 
tion of the patient's insanity, intellectual 
and moral.” 

In the course of his discussion of the 
case Dr. Stedman says further: 

“The development of a delusional state 
in the course of moral insanity is appar¬ 
ently not uncommon and affords another 
and strong argument for the contention 
that intellectual involvement in some form 


is an essential feature of the disease, or, 
in other words, that there is no such thing 
as a mental disorder affecting the moral 
sphere alone.” 

A MEDICO-LEGAL CLASSIC. 

This case of Jane Toppan will ever be a 
medico-legal classic. As a child she was 
noted as a mischiefmaker; her foster- 
mother was obliged to send her from 
home because she continually told lies. 
Yet when she became a nurse she de¬ 
veloped qualities which made her agree¬ 
able, even loved, and when she was ar¬ 
rested some of her former patients evinced 
far more concern than she herself. In¬ 
deed, from the day of her arrest Jane 
Toppan has never shown fear of conse¬ 
quences, much less remorse for her mur¬ 
ders. Poison had become a habit of her 
life, she told the examining physicians. 

In planning and carrying out her homi¬ 
cidal acts she was, she asserted, alwavs 
calm and clear-headed. After adminis¬ 
tering the poisons she experienced great 
relief and went to bed and slept soundly. 
“Why don't I grieve over it and feel 
sorry?" she asked. 

The world shuddered when Jane Top- 
pan was arrested and her crimes were told 
in print. Dr. Stedman has evidence to 
substantiate 20 of the murders to which 
she confesses; the other eleven are beyond 
investigation. In two instances she 
claimed to have been seized with com¬ 
punction and to have sent for another 
nurse. One of the patients was saved in 
consequence. In another instance she 
took the opportunity to repeat the dose 
and make sure of her victim. As said 
before, there was an utter absence of 
motive in all cases. The whole gamut 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SO CL 


477 


of human motives was run over by the in¬ 
vestigators in vain. There was neither 
avarice nor hatred to inspire her. Xo 
sexual instinct had been perverted in her, 
as was at first supposed, nor was she a 
user of liquor or opium. It was an irre¬ 
sistible propensity which impelled her to 
kill her best friends, and to commit the 
four crimes of arson to which she also 
confessed. And here is where the case 
takes on a phase of extraordinary inter¬ 
est. not only to the medical and legal pro¬ 
fessions. but to the layman. In their re¬ 
port to the district attorney upon which 
the court committed the woman to the 
hospital, the physicians said : 

DEGENERATIVE MORAL IN¬ 
SANITY. 

“The salient features of the case which 
indicated more especially irresponsibility 
were: Lack of moral understanding, of 
natural feelings, and of the ordinary, mo¬ 
tives for conduct including criminal acts, 
also the general absence in her of suffi¬ 
cient self-control to restrain her from 
crime, and her disregard of consequences, 
as shown, for example, in continuing to 
poison patients in full knowledge that her 
guilt in other recent cases was suspected; 
bv her desire to confess her guilt at the 
outset: her indifference to her fate. etc. 
These facts seemed to us to evidence her 
inability both to help doing what she did 
and to be affected by punishment, con¬ 
ditions which are the best tests of ac¬ 
countability." 

To this Dr. Stedman adds: 

“Moral insanity belongs to the group 
known as insanities of degeneration, and 
is better termed degenerative insanity of 
the moral type. It should be exclusively 


reserved to designate a congenital, pri¬ 
mary, constitutional and permanent men¬ 
tal condition affecting the moral nature 
and unassociated with evident intellectual 
impairment. These patients have good 
memory and understanding, ability to 
reason and contrive, much cleverness and 
cunning, and a general appearance of ra¬ 
tionality. coexistent with very deficient 
control, absence of moral sense and human 
sentiments and feelings, perverted and 
brutal instincts, and propensities for crim¬ 
inal acts of various kinds which may be 
perpetrated deliberately and cleverly 
planned, yet committed with little or no 
motive and regardless of the consequences 
to themselves and others. This latter 
point is important as indicative of a per¬ 
version of the fundamental instinct of 
self-preservation (Kellogg). In their 
general conduct, also, these individuals 
are rarely governed by the same motives 
that govern sane people, whether crim¬ 
inals or not. and it is often difficult to see 
what the motive is.'’ 

Jane Toppan is now 4^ years old. Not 
much has been ascertained of her earliest 
life; but it is known that she and her 
sister were placed in a foundling hospital 
by their father, an eccentric man who 
drank freely. The sister is a respectable 
and capable woman. A younger sister is 
a chronic insane patient. A third sister 
led a dissolute life and is dead. 

The kind and Christian training 
which Mrs. Toppan gave her ward 
(whose name had been Honora Kelly I 
was thrown away: her incorrigible pro¬ 
pensities for deceit, falsehood and trou¬ 
ble-making. never absent from the first, 
proved too much, and she was sent away. 

It is thus evident that her taint is in- 






BOOK OF THE TIMES 


*78 

born. Once she told Dr. Stedman : “I All her poisoning was done with opium, 
seem to have a sort of paralysis of with a fatal dose of atropine, and the 
thought and reason. Something comes draught was so given in Hunyadi water 
over me; I don’t know what it is. .1 as to be unsuspected by the patient and 
have an uncontrollable desire to give by the physician as well, 
poison without regard to consequences.” 

HYPNOTISM AND CRIME. 


Arrested on the charge of shoplifting, 
a woman being tried in one of the New 
York City courts offered in defense the 
plea that she was impelled to the act of 
theft by a person who had hypnotized 
her. 

This remarkable excuse presents a dif¬ 
ficult question for the jury to decide, as 
it is one about which even scientists who 
have studied the phenomena of hypnotism 
are not agreed. 

Few cases are on record in which this 
plea of irresponsibility was used success¬ 
fully in defense of a prisoner charged 
with committing a criminal act. In one 
instance the celebrated nerve specialist, 
Kraft-Ebbing, gave testimony which se¬ 
cured the release of a prisoner who 
claimed to have acted under the influence 
of hypnotism, but subsequently this 
woman, who was a professional shop¬ 
lifter. admitted that she had deceived the 
learned medical man. 

In another similar case a woman was 
discharged and the three actual perpe¬ 
trators of the crime were punished. 

Several years ago a committee was ap¬ 
pointed by the French government to de¬ 
termine whether it is possible for one per¬ 
son to cause another, who is hypnotized, 
to sign receipts for money not received, 
and whether a hypnotized person could 
be induced to execute a will in favor of 


any person determined by the party mak¬ 
ing the experiment. Both questions were 
answered in the affirmative. But these 
conclusions, it appears, were largely 
based on analogy and on work which was 
done in the laboratory. No case is on 
record in which either of the above acts 
was committed in actual practice. 

A number of trials have resulted in the 
conviction of men who have been accused 
of taking advantage of women whom 
they had hypnotized. 

Experimentally, there is not much evi¬ 
dence that hypnotism is of practical use in 
the commission of crime. 

Those who take this view say that 
while it is possible, without the least dif¬ 
ficulty. to induce a hypnotized person to 
do what is asked, the subject will still re¬ 
tain a certain power of control over his 
actions and will stop short of doing any- 
thing illegal or harmful to another. The 
hypnotized person will at once fire an un¬ 
loaded pistol at his dearest friend, if the 
suggestion is given him. 

TEST EXPERIMENTS. 

Some investigators insist that the sub¬ 
ject will likewise discharge a loaded pis¬ 
tol if instructed to do so, and challenge 
the doubters to try the experiment if thev 
are so certain that no harm would result. 

The following experiments have been 
performed: 






PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOUL 


479 


A young woman who was hypnotized 
was told to pour the contents of an ink- 
stand over her elegant light dress. She 
did not obey. 

A subject who carried out the instruc¬ 
tion of assuming the character < f an of¬ 
ficer or a sailor was conscientiously re¬ 
strained from acting the part of a priest. 

A woman was told to stab a man, 
which she at once did. with a card which 
had been placed in her hand. A knife was 
then given to her and the instruction 
again given. She raised her hand, but 
did not attempt to strike. 

A Jewess was hypnotized on a Satur¬ 
day. when it is forbidden an orthodox 
Tew to accept money, and offered a gold 
coin. She refused to take it. 

WTiv more advantage is not taken of 
hypnotizable people to carry out criminal 
acts when such would seem to be a con¬ 
venient method of violating the law is 
easily answered. 

In the first place it is generally believed 
that only a person with evil tendencies 
can be used as a tool. It would be safer 
to make a confederate of such a person 
than trust to the complicated and clumsy 
method of hypnotism. 

Then many people cannot be hypno¬ 
tized. and of those whom it is possible to 
get under influence some mav. and many 
often do. awake when the experimenter 
least expects it. Besides, complete loss of 
memory of what takes place during hyp¬ 
nosis is not universal. A still further 
drawback is the fact that the hypnotized 
person would act like a machine without 
regard to surrounding conditions and 
would take no precautions to avoid de¬ 
tection. He would blindly follow the in¬ 
struction given, but his actions would 


surely attract the attention of people who 
would see him. To avoid the mechanical 
movements of the hypnotized person, it 
would be necessary to give suggestions 
to him covering every possible combina¬ 
tion of contingencies, and this would pre¬ 
sent difficulties so great as to hardlv war- 
rant the risky attempt. A recent writer 
on the subject says that he considers the 
danger of detection so great that a less 
practical method could hardly be selected. 

CIVIL LAW ON HYPNOTISM. 

In most European countries only medi¬ 
cal men are permitted to practice hypno¬ 
tism. 

Russian law forbids a physician to 
hypnotize a patient unless there are other 
medical men present. And even then it 
is first necessary to notify the local ad¬ 
ministrative authorities of the exact day 
and hour on which the proposed seance 
will take place and the names of the wit¬ 
nesses must be given. Publications on 
hypnotism which may be accessible to the 
ordinary reader must be submitted to a 
censorship. Xo public exhibitions may 
be given outside of clinics or hospitals. 

That hypnotism has an injurious effect, 
both physical and moral, is now generally 
conceded by all well qualified men who 
have seriously considered the matter. 
Medical authorities all over the world 
have pointed out its dangers. 

One writer on the subject, whose ex¬ 
perience qualifies him to express an 
opinion, states that the risk of mental de¬ 
terioration from the frequent induction 
of the hypnotic state, especially for those 
of a nervous temperament, is distinctly 
dangerous. For this reason alone there 
is good cause why there ought to be 





480 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


passed a law in the United States to re¬ 
strict the practice of hypnotism to the 
medical profession. 

In France its use is forbidden even for 
therapeutic purposes in the military and 
naval hospitals. Charcot, the great 
French neurologist, who was largely re¬ 
sponsible for the revival of the hypnotic 
form of treatment, almost completely 
abandoned its use during the last years 
of his life. At present it seems destined 
to be regarded more as a medical curi¬ 
osity than as a useful form of treatment. 

Bernheim, a medical man with an 
enormous experience with hypnotism, 
once had the misfortune to lose a patient 
whom he had put under hypnotic influ¬ 
ence. The man he was treating was suf¬ 
fering from pain caused by some in¬ 
flamed veins of one leg, and he was put 
to sleep to relieve the distress which this 
trouble caused him. The man died in 
two hours. 

Lombroso reported the case of an of¬ 
ficer who had been hypnotized at a public 
seance and who later on was accustomed 
to fall into the hypnotic condition at the 


sight of any shining object. One night 
on approaching an advancing carriage 
which carried a lamp the officer became 
unconscious and would have fallen and 
been crushed to death had not a comrade 
rescued him. 

A young woman who had been hypno¬ 
tized by the aid of a gong subsequently 
developed a tendency to go into spon¬ 
taneous trance when she heard any regu¬ 
lar or monotonous sound. One day cross¬ 
ing a crowded street as the church bells 
were ringing she staggered and fell under 
the wheels of a passing vehicle and was 
killed. 

As hypnotism is beneficial only in those 
functional diseases which rarely endan¬ 
ger life, and for which many other well 
known and less dangerous and simpler 
remedies may be employed, it would seem 
as if hypnotism as a means of cure has a 
restricted field in which it must be used 
by medical men; and as its manifestations 
are pathological rather than physiologi¬ 
cal, there is every reason to demand that 
a law should be enacted to prevent its in¬ 
discriminate use by the laity. 


CRIME AS A HEREDITARY DISEASE, 


VIEWS OF A NOTED REFORMER 
OF CRIMINALS. 

“Every man is born to crime; it is in¬ 
nate within him,” says Mr. John L. Whit¬ 
man. “The child’s first impulse after 
realization is to destroy, to do something 
that it ought not to do. The crime germ 
is in every human body. In many it 
never takes effect, or when it does the 
power to resist it is strong and the dis¬ 
ease is conquered, but in others it over¬ 
comes the powers of resistance, and the 


victim is crimesick. It develops until the 
man or woman becomes a Christian sav¬ 
age, and then society must cure him of 
•the ailment. 

CALLS CRIME A DISEASE. 

“Crime is a disease. Criminologists 
are agreed upon that point. When a man 
becomes crimesick the great problem is 
to cure him, and that is now one of the 
greatest problems of society. Accepting 
that crime is a disease, we must awaken 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE , MIND AND SOUL 


to the fact that our jails and prisons are 
hospitals, and not institutions where the 
crimesick man must be mistreated and 
driven to hate society upon which he will 
be turned with the disease within more 
malignant, seeking to wreak vengeance 
upon society, his persecutor. 

“Penal laws do not prevent crime; it is 
the enforcement of the spirit of the law 
alone that will prevent crime, and en¬ 
forcement of the spirit of the law is to 
cure men of the crime disease. The 
physically sick are treated for their ail¬ 
ment. If they are cured it is well, but 
if they die they pass out of society and 
society goes on as before. But the crime- 
sick man is a great menace to society and 
he must be cured or when turned upon 
society from the prison he spreads the 
germs with fearful effect to humanity in 
general. 

CAN BE CURED BY TREATMENT. 

“It is in the treatment of the prisoner 
that the disease can be cured, but the old- 
idea of punishment of criminals only 
serves to increase the disease and not to 
cure it. In our jails we must teach men 
the higher principles of life. Show them 
the light by appealing to their manhood, 
their pride, their honor, and impress them 
with the fact that society wants them to 
return as one of its protectors. It is the 
spirit of the law that demands the cure 
of criminals; the letter of the law en¬ 
forced puts men in the hospitals where 
they may be cured. 

“When society thoroughly awakens to 
the demand in the treatment of its crim¬ 
inals that they be cured of their crime- 
sickness and not locked up within cold 
prison walls for punishment alone hu- 


481 


inanity will be better oft and crime will 
rapidly disappear.’’ 

FINAL DISUSE OF THE FIVE 
SENSES. 

A time will come, perhaps—and many 
things there are which herald its ap¬ 
proach—a time will come, perhaps, when 
our souls will know of each other with¬ 
out the intermediary of the senses. 

Certain it is that there passes not a 
day but the soul adds to its ecer widen¬ 
ing domain. It is very much nearer to 
our visible self and takes a far greater 
part in all our actions than was the case 
two or three centuries ago. 

A spiritual epoch is perhaps upon us, 
an epoch to which a certain number of 
analogies are found in history. For there 
are periods recorded when the soul in 
obedience to unknown laws seemed to rise 
to the very surface of humanity, whence 
it gave clearest evidence of its existence 
and of its power. And this existence and 
this power reveal themselves in countless 
ways, diverse and unforeseen. 

It would seem at moments such as these 
as though humanity were on the point of 
struggling from beneath the crushing 
burden of matter that weighs it down. 

A spiritual influence is abroad that 
soothes and comforts and the sternest, 
direst laws of nature yield here and there. 

Men are nearer to themselves, nearer 
to their brethren; in the look of their 
eyes, in the love of their hearts there is 
deeper earnestness and tenderer fellow¬ 
ship. Their understanding of women, 
children, animals, plants—nay, of all 
things—becomes more profound. The 
statues, paintings and writings that these 
men have left us may, perhaps, not be 






482 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


perfect, but none the less does there dwell 
therein a secret power, an indescribable 
grace held captive and imperishable for¬ 
ever. 

A mysterious brotherhood and love 
must have shone forth from the eyes of 
these men and signs of a life that we 
cannot explain are everywhere vibrating 
by the side of the life of every day. 

Such knowledge as we possess of an¬ 
cient Egypt induces us to believe that she 
passed through one of these spiritual 
epochs. 

SOUL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA. 

At a very remote period in the history 
of India the soul must have drawn very 
near to the surface of life, to a point in¬ 
deed that it has never since touched, and 
up to this day strange phenomena owe 
their being to the recollection or lingering 
remnants of its almost immediate pres¬ 
ence. 

Many other similar moments there 
have been when the spiritual element 
seemed to be struggling far down in the 
depths of humanity like a drowning man 
battling for life beneath the waters of a 
great river. 

Bethink you of Persia, for instance, of 
Alexandria, and the two mystic centuries 
of the Middle Ages. 

Today the soul is making a mighty 
effort. Its manifestations are everywhere 
and they are strangely urgent, pressing, 
imperious even, as though the order had 
been given and no time must be lost. 

It must be preparing for a decisive 
struggle and none can foretell the issues 
that may be dependent on the result, be 
this victory or flight. 

Perhaps never to this day has it en¬ 


listed in its service such diverse irresisti¬ 
ble forces. It is as though an invisible 
wall hemmed it in and one knows not 
whether it be quivering in its death throb 
or quickened by a new life. 

OCCULT POWERS. 

I will say nothing of the occult powers 
of which signs are everywhere, of mag¬ 
netism, telepathy, levitation, the unsus¬ 
pected properties of radiating matter and 
countless other phenomena that are bat¬ 
tering down the door of orthodox science. 

These things are known by all men and 
may easily be verified. And truly they 
may well be the merest bagatelle by the 
side of the vast upheaval that is actually 
in progress, for the soul is like a dreamer, 
enthralled by sleep, who struggles with 
all his might to move an arm or raise 
an eyelid. 

Other regions there are where its ac¬ 
tions are even more effective, though the 
crowd there is less regardful and none 
but trained eyes can see. 

Does it not seem as though the su¬ 
preme cry of the soul were at last about 
to pierce the dense clouds of error that 
still envelop it in music? 

Do not certain pictures by foreign 
painters reveal the sacred majestv of an 
invisible presence, as it never has been 
revealed before? 

Are there not masterpieces in litera¬ 
ture that are illumined by a flame which 
differs in its very essence from the 
stranger beacon fires that lit up the writ¬ 
ings of bygone days? 

Spiritual phenomena to which in for¬ 
mer days even the greatest and wisest of 
our brethren scarcely gave a thought are 
today being earnestly studied by the very 





PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


463 


smallest, and here are we shown again 
that the human soul is a plant of match¬ 
less unity whose branches when the hour 
has come all burst into blossom together. 

The peasant to whom the power of ex¬ 
pressing that which lies in his soul should 
suddenly be given would at this moment 
pour forth ideas that were not yet in the 
soul of Racine. 

And thus it is that nu.i of genius much 
inferior to that of Shakespeare or Racine 
have yet had revealed to them glimpses 
of a secret luminous life, whose outer 
crust alone had come within the ken of 
those masters. 

For, however great the soul, it avails 
not that it should wander in isolation 
through space or time. Unaided it can 
do but little. It is the flower of the multi¬ 
tude. 

When the spiritual sea is storm-tossed 
and its whole surface restless and 
troubled there is the moment ripe for the 
mighty soul to appear: but if it came at 
time of slumber its utterance will be but 
of the dreams of sleep. 

Hamlet at Elsinore at every moment 
advances to the very brink of awaken¬ 
ing. and yet though his haggard face be 
damp with icy sweat, there are words 
that today would doubtless flow readily 
from his lips because the soul of the 


passer-by, he he tramp or thief, could be 
there to help him. 

For in truth it would seem that already 
there are fewer veils that wrap the soul 
and were Hamlet now to look into the 
eyes of his mother or of Claudius there 
would be revealed to him the things that 
then he did not know. 

FEELING THE PRESENCE OF 
EVIL. 

Is it thoroughly clear to you that if 
there be evil in your heart your mere 
presence will probably proclaim it today 
a hundred times more clearly than would 
have been the case two or three centuries 
ago? 

Though you assume the face of a saint, 
a hero or a martyr, the eye of the passing 
child will not greet you with the same 
unapproachable smile, if there lurk with¬ 
in you an evil thought, an injustice or a 
brother’s tears. 

It is felt on all sides that the condi¬ 
tions of work-a-day life are changing and 
the youngest of us already differ entirely 
in speech and action from the men of the 
preceding generation. A mass of useless 
conventions, habits, pretenses and inter¬ 
mediaries are being swept into the gulf, 
and it is by the invisible alone that, 
though we know it not, nearly all of us 
judge each other. 


THE SIXTH SENSE. 


OPINIONS OF A SCIENTIST ON 
TELEPATHY AND CLAIR¬ 
VOYANCE. 

Time was when I believed that human 
beings were gradually evolving a sixth 
sense, or a psychic method of receiving 
impressions, or becoming conscious of 


touch through another and mysterious 
avenue, than the well known five senses 
of receiving outside information. I now 
believe that we have evolved or are evolv¬ 
ing out of that condition into the higher 
state of reason. I make this statement 
knowing full well that detectives may 






484 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


follow, for other symptoms of insanity, 
and that they may even break into my 
shanty, catch me asleep and in their zeal 
to display bravery, shoot me to death. 
However, I propose to furnish my read¬ 
ers with some of the simple facts which 
point to reason as the very highest order 
of life, viz., receiving information, yet 
reached by the highest order of the white 
(Caucasian) male human being. I be¬ 
lieve that it is generally conceded, and 
will not be denied, that psychic powers 
are closely related to animal “instinct,” 
as it is called. It is well known that ani¬ 
mals inherit at birth certain knowledge, 
or “instinct,” which they make use of to 
a much larger extent than do the young 
of human beings; and yet when the ex¬ 
perimenting and reasoning powers of the 


human babe are matured he is the master 
and director of all other life and phe¬ 
nomena. When the young chick breaks 
through the shell and draws his first 
breath of air he is standing upon his feet, 
with his eyes open, and knows exactly 
what to do next; that is to say, he feels 
the directing forces upon his protoplasm, 
which the babe does not feel and could 
not obey if he felt them. The human 
babe is the most helpless of all creatures, 
more so than a sponge, oyster or common 
weed. If not taken care of by others he 
would perish in a short time. Instinct 
or psychic means of receiving informa¬ 
tion has given place to reason on account 
of the gradual increased use of reason 
and the decreasing use of psychic feeling 
by his ancestors. 


TELEPATHY AS AN EXPLANATION OF CHRIST’S CON¬ 
STANT REFERENCE TO PURITY OF HEART. 


To particularize one matter, how much 
more significant and important the under¬ 
lying principle of the Sermon on the 
Mount becomes in the light of telepathy. 
Jesus Christ insists on the necessity of 
keeping the heart right ; the thought per¬ 
fectly pure. His demands in this regard 
are severe and exacting in the extreme, 
so much so that it has been found diffi¬ 
cult to explain them on reasonable 
grounds. The feeling of anger against 
a brother is represented as a crime as 
culpable and heinous as murder; the adul¬ 
terous thought is adultery as certainly 
as though the act had been performed. 
It is easier to understand these sayings of 
His if what has been suggested about 
telepathy is true. Let it he granted that 
every movement of the mind sets the 


ether in motion, and that any person, dis¬ 
tant or near, whose mind is at that mo¬ 
ment strung to the same pitch—that is, 
is possessed by similar feeling—is there¬ 
by made peculiarly susceptible to these 
vibrations; it will be seen that all the 
mental activities of a man are not only 
exercising a large influence on his own 
character and on the life of his neighbors, 
but must be a potent factor in determin¬ 
ing the conduct of large numbers of peo¬ 
ple whom he has never seen and of whom 
he has no knowledge. 

HOW ANGER MEANS MURDER. 

He one day becomes furiously angry 
with his neighbor. But for the restraints 
of the law and of the public opinion under 
which he lives he would kill him. The 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AND SOUL 


4 So 


incident passes, and it seems to him that 
nothing has happened. But next day the 
newspapers inform him that there has 
been a horrible murder in another part 
of the country. It occurred at the mo¬ 
ment of his own fit of angry feeling. He 
sees no connection between the two; and 
yet, but for the ether vibrations he set in 
motion, and which struck the brain of 


telepathy be true, every man is responsi¬ 
ble for his brother’s conduct; he may be 
influencing towards good or evil both 
those whom he knows and great num¬ 
bers of whose existence even he is ignor¬ 
ant, and who are living thousands of 
miles distant from him. And if Jesus 
Christ knew this to be so, the reason of 
His strong words will be quite apparent. 



A study in barnacles: The “Kaiser Friedrich” in dry dock after a voyage. The above 
extraordinary photograph was taken at Kiel, and shows the curious disguise with which 
Neptune had' adorned the helm, screw, and bottom of the great German warship. 


the man who is now a murderer, the 
crime would probably—at least it might 
—not have been committed. Or he al¬ 
lows his mind to dwell long on the un¬ 
clean thought, but commits no wrong act. 
Another man, however, less completely 
under control, is driven to do something 
infamous by reason of the etheric undu¬ 
lations he has started. In a larger sense 
than we have imagined, if this account of 


OPINIONS OF A DISBELIEVER. 

“Telepathy,” Mr. Lang tells us, “is 
quite an old idea. Bacon calls it ‘sympa¬ 
thy’ between two distant minds, sympa¬ 
thy so strong that one communicates with 
the other without using the recognized 
channels of the senses. Izaak Walton 
explains in the same way Dr. Donne’s 
vision, in Paris, of his wife and dead 
child. ‘If two lutes are strung to an ex- 

















486 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


act harmony, and one is struck, the other 
sounds,’ argues Walton.” Yes, if the 
lutes are close to each other; but let 
one lute be in London and the other in 
South Africa, though one be struck never 
so loudly the other will remain silent. 
“Two minds,” continues Mr. Lang, “may 
be as harmoniously attuned and commu¬ 
nicate one with the other. Of course, in 
the case of the lutes, there are actual vi¬ 
brations, physical facts. But we know 
nothing of vibrations in the brain which 
can traverse space to another brain.” We 
certainly know nothing of such vibra¬ 
tions, nor is there anything worthy of 
the name of evidence in favor of such 
intercommunication between brains, liv¬ 
ing- or dead. In the case of the dead the 
suggestion is somewhat strange, for the 
idea of the departed possessing a brain 
is certainly a novel one. 

<• 

EMINENT SCIENTISTS ASTRAY. 

Yet this belief has received the patron¬ 
age of at least one man of science, for 
Sir William Crookes, speaking as presi¬ 
dent of the British association, talked of 
“the fundamental law that thoughts and 
images may be transferred from one 
mind to another without the agency of 
the recognized organs of sense.” Why 
such a law, if such there be, should be 
termed “fundamental” it seems impossi¬ 
ble to say. It would appear to be no 
more “fundamental” than any other nat¬ 
ural law. But is there any such law? 
Or, if so, can it operate when thousands 
of miles separate the one brain from the 
other? Most assuredly we shall not ac¬ 
cept the statement on the ipse dixit of 
any scientific man, however eminent. It 


is well known that a man may have great 
scientific attainments, and yet, by the 
constitution of his mind and character, 
be quite unfitted to weigh and sift evi¬ 
dence; to disentangle the truth from the 
mazes of human falsehood and human 
credulity. Learned professors of science 
have not unfrequently been taken in by 
the vulgar imposture of a spiritualistic 
medium whose tricks have subsequently 
been detected and exposed by men of 
far less eminence but of more practical 
knowledge and experience. 

I submit, then, that there is nothing 
which can be called evidence in favor of. 
this wonderful supposed law or faculty. 
Most alleged cases may be explained with 
certainty as simple coincidences. Thou¬ 
sands of mothers, for example, think of 
their sons in distant regions, long to see 
them, are extremely anxious about them, 
and it not unfrequently happens that one 
of these anxious mothers dreams of her 
son, or even has an “hallucination” that 
he has appeared to her. In ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred nothing further 
happens and nothing further is said about 
the dream or appearance; but in the hun¬ 
dredth case the mother receives news that 
her son is dead. The story is repeated 
on all hands. How mysterious! “A 
clear case of spiritual appearancd,” say 
the believers in the supernatural. “A 
clear case of telepathy,” say the pseudo¬ 
scientists of modern times. It is neither 
the one nor the other. It is a case of the 
law (shall we say “fundamental” law?) 
of chances. Where millions of shots are 
always being fired at the target it would 
he strange indeed if some did not hit 
now and then. 






PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


4S7 


THE FASCINATION OF THE MYS¬ 
TERIOUS. 

In truth, there is quite as much so- 
called evidence for witchcraft and de¬ 
monology and medieval miracles, and 
many other discarded superstitions, as 
there is for the ghost-story of modern 
civilization. But the ghost-story is pop¬ 
ular, and probably will ever be so. There 
is a fascination even for the skeptic about 
the weird and the mysterious. More¬ 
over, with many people the wish to be¬ 
lieve in ghosts is strong, for therein they 
would fain find an assurance of an after¬ 
life. Therefore, the ghost-story is prob¬ 
ably destined to endure. But “believe it 
not, my son!” Neither believe thou 
their psuedo-scientific theories of “telepa¬ 
thy,” whether between the living or be¬ 
tween the living and the dead—at least 
until they have produced such real evi¬ 
dence as shall satisfy the trained minds 
of scientific men—not one or two 
“cranks” only; and this, I think, they are 
likely to do somewhere about the Greek 
Kalends. No doubt there are more 
things in heaven and earth than are 


dreamed of in our philosophy, and when 
they are proved to exist we will believe 
in them—but not till then. 

CLAIMS FOLLOWED TO 
ABSURDITY. 

Here is a strange yet absolutely true 
story, in which a clock plays a mysterious 
part. It was a small American time¬ 
piece, which stood on a mantelpiece in a 
sitting-room in a Liverpool builder’s 
house. At a quarter past eleven one 
morning a few weeks ago the timepiece 
fell from the mantelpiece to the floor. 
When picked up it was found to be quite 
uninjured and still going, as if nothing 
unusual had happened. There seemed to 
be absolutely no reason why it should 
have fallen, but an hour later, when the 
builder came home to his midday meal, 
he remarked that at a quarter past eleven 
he fell from the top of a building, but 
happily without sustaining any injury. 
His wife then described how the clock 
had fallen at the same time, and the cou¬ 
ple ponder in vain over the curious and 
utterly inexplicable coincident. 


CURIOSITIES OF SLEEP AND THEORIES OF DREAMS. 


Professor Richard A. Proctor, a noted 
scientific writer, held the belief that the 
“memory for form” on which success, in 
drawing, in sculpture, in wood carving, 
and in all the “graphic and plastic arts" 
depends, shows its realities far more fully 
in dreaming than it usually does in wak¬ 
ing, and that this process of memory un¬ 
controlled by circumstances or will is the 
explanation of dreams. 

Of course, the extent of the final suc¬ 
cess of any draughtsman, any designer 


who, on paper, in marble, metal or any 
other material, imitates the forms of na¬ 
ture, must depend finally on the readiness 
with which he cannot only remember, but 
recollect or recall at will, the forms 
through which he seeks to express his 
ideas. Otherwise, he must remain either 
a copyist of the work of others, or, if 
he works directly from his own models 
in nature, he must work in their presence 
or rely on his own actual records made in 
tli^ir presence. 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


4'> 


The memory for form seems to be the 
firs: mem-: ry developed, but the power of 
using it through recollection seems to be 
generally superseded by the ha': it of reiv¬ 
ing wholly, or almost wholly, on words as 
s -: n as they begin to be used instead of 
the forms for which they stand. 

A noted scientific writer in comment¬ 
ing on this the. tv. savs: “It seems to me 
that, asleep or awake, this memory is the 
same, though, in most of us. it is only in 
sleep that it operates easily, quickly and 
without conscious effort through proc¬ 
esses c f recollection which, if attempted 
when awake, soon become too laborious 
to follow further. These same processes 
enter also into dreams when we are 
dreaming in words, a laborious and tire- 
s me method, which belongs to the sec- 
nd nature resulting from education, 
rather than to original nature." 

DISORDERED NERVES. 

Another species of form memory be¬ 
ll ngs t iisordered nerves acting specially 
through the nerve centres of vision, 
tb ugh it acts also at times through the 
nerves of hearing. In this, a person who 
is fully awake sees “projected" into seem¬ 
ing reality before him. the most startling 
lifelike creations of his own power of 
“creating images." This may happen 


without “intemperance." or. at least, with¬ 
out the intemperate use of alcoholic stimu¬ 
lants. which are its most familiar cause. A 
noted scientist of approved sobriety and 
temperance in everything except work saw 
a building in which he was greatly inter¬ 
ested tom down. On passing the site 
some time afterward, he was at first im¬ 
measurably ast nished to see the building 
standing as he had known it for years, 
complete in all its parts. Being in full 
possession of his judgment and all other 
intellectual faculties, he stopped and ob¬ 
served the illusion as long as it lasted, 
and recorded his experience for the bene¬ 
fit of expert students of the conditions 
of extreme nervous overstrain, from 
which he knew, as a result of this “pro¬ 
jection" that he was suffering. 

It is possible that in the case of sight 
the mental image which usually appears 
only in dreams might be called up and 
“projected" at will, as an illusion of form 
and color, by a process of education di¬ 
rected to that end. But no doubt the 
nerves thus educated would be much more 
liable to disorder than they would other¬ 
wise. and the faculty itself might at any 
time begin to develop its “projections" in 
spite of the effort of the will to prevent 
it. 


CAUSES OF DREAMS. 


Maury, while a child, dreamed that his 
head was being hammered on the anvil 
of a smithy, and discovered on awaking 
that a blacksmith was in fact making 
horseshoes in a neighboring building. 
When grown up. he dreamed that he 
was about to be guillotined, and wo^e 


up to find that a lath from the head of 
the bed had fallen and was pressing 
upon his neck. Dr. Gregory, in like 
manner, went to sleep with a hot-water 
bottle at his feet and dreamed that he 
was climbing Mount Etna and walking 
over hot lava. So it has been shown by 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIXD AXD SOUL 


4«9 


actual experiment that water dropped 
into the open mouth of a sleeper will 
make him dream that he is swimming, 
a silk handkerchief laid over the mouth 
and nose that he is suffocated or buried 
alive, and a mustard plaster laid on the 
head that he is being scalped by Indians. 
The strength of such sensory impres¬ 
sions. which may even translate them¬ 
selves into actions without awaking the 
sleeper, may be easily observed in the 
case of dogs asleep before a fire, who will 
often move their paws and open cry as 
if they were actually hunting. In this 
case, it is probably the increased flow of 
blood to the legs caused by the heat of 
the fire which is the determining cause 
of the dream. 

PERSONS DREAMING ALIKE. 

From this it might be gathered that 
everyone in the same circumstances w uld 
dream the same thing, and to a certain 
extent this is no doubt true. The ten- 
dencv of shipwrecked sailors upon short 
allowance of food and drink to dream 
of abundant dishes and flowing streams 
has often been noted, and it is said that 
the dreams of soldiers the night before 
the battle often bear a -tr« ng family like¬ 
ness to each other. So. too. we can ex¬ 
plain the practice of "incubation" in many 
ancient temples, where he who would en¬ 
quire of the god was allowed to sleep 
near the shrine, and generally managed to 
dream something which could he twisted 
into an answer t< > the question he had 
come to ask. But it should 1 >e remem¬ 
bered that the concepts of our waking mo¬ 
ments are never simple, but are largely 
made up of memories of our former im¬ 
pressions, and- it is not reasonable to ex¬ 


pect that our sleeping concepts should 
differ from them. Just as an artist and 
farmer see different things when they 
look at a beautiful landscape, so does 
the personal equation count for much in 
dreams. Dr. Maudsley tells us that in his 
experience those w hom years of practice 
in observation and reflection have trained 
to think coherently will alone have co¬ 
herent dreams: while M. Lorain says that 
the amount of cerebral activity mani¬ 
fested by the individual during the day is 
the measure of cerebral capacity shown 
by him in dreamland. People who do not 
use their brains much—children, w omen, 
and handicraftsmen, as he rather un- 
gallantly puts it—according to this last, 
seldom show any intellectual power in 
their dreams. 

WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF. 

So far. therefore, it might be said 
that all our dreams are composed of im¬ 
pressions received from the urer w rid. 
and this would be the end of the matter 
w ere man only the "bundle of sensations" 
that Kingsley s Aben Ezra once thought 
himself. But the fact that the great 
organs of the body—the heart, the lungs, 
and the liver—continue to work when the 
senses are drowned in sleep, shows that 
this is not so. and that behind the "moi 
sens- riel." or sensory self, there stands 
the “moi splanchnique." or visceral self, 
which discharges all the functi ns neces¬ 
sary to the maintenance of life and well¬ 
being without reference to the individual 
consciousness. What part this second 
personality within us plays in the compo¬ 
sition of our dreams is not yet clear, and 
it is possible that it never does so directlv. 
but only by such a disarrangement or in- 





490 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


terruption of the machinery as forces it¬ 
self upon the attention of the senses The 
question seems for the present to be out¬ 
side the range of experiment, but it ap¬ 
pears to be well established that any lesion 
of the more important viscera, such as 
paralysis, locomotor ataxia, and certain 
forms of heart and lung disease herald 
their approach by nightly-recurring 
dreams of the most terrifying character. 

Subject to this, however, the theory 
that dreams are made up of past and 
present impressions holds the field, and 
this receives nightly confirmation in the 
case of most of us. Fantastic and odd 
as our dreams—or rather what we re- 

HOW TO CAUSE AND 

Nerve specialists have recently proven 
beyond a doubt that pleasant, as well as 
bad dreams can be readily made to order. 

An experimenter who bandages his 
subjects’ feet in splints which bend down 
their insteps until they are almost in line 
with the shin bones finds that dreams of 
dancing, walking or running on tip-toe 
are induced. 

If hideous faces haunt your dreams, as 
is common, they may be replaced by 
pleasing ones if you will gaze with great 
concentration upon pictures of beautiful 
faces just before you settle down to slum¬ 
ber. 

A course of experiments covering seven 
years has shown that dreams of certain 
colors may be induced by causing the sub¬ 
ject to gaze steadily at disks or‘through 
glass, of the desired hue, placed before 
his eyes in such manner as will cause sur¬ 
prise just before retiring. 

That cold compresses applied to the 


member of them—appear to our waking 
minds, patient analysis generally decom¬ 
poses them into a sort of kaleidoscopic 
combination of sensations received during 
sleep with the events or thoughts occur¬ 
ring to us in the past. Those who go 
from one country to another where people 
and customs are very different, such as 
Japanese in America, say that for the first 
six months, or even more than a year, 
all their dreams are in scenes of the old 
home. After several years spent in 
America, it requires similar time when 
they return home for their dreams to 
change from scenes of America. 

MANAGE DREAMS. 

head will prevent had dreams is also 
noted. A layer of cotton wool bound over 
the forehead will, by increasing the tem¬ 
perature of the head, cause either pleasant 
or unpleasant dreams to become more 
vivid and intelligent. 

Bv placing the sleeper on his right side 
his dreams are made absurd, extravagant 
and of a remote time, while those experi¬ 
enced while he lies upon his left side are 
reasonable and of a recent time. Sleep¬ 
ing upon the back produces agitated 
dreams. 

Bad dreams are dissipated also by 
placing a lighted candle in the otherwise 
darkened room of the sleeper. 

APPLICATIONS TO FEET. 

A hot-water bottle applied to the feet 
of one sleeping subject caused him to 
dream that he was walking over hot lava, 
while to another it conjured up the dream 
picture that he was being led by Satan 



PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AND SOUL 


401 


over the flaming marl of hell. Another 
so treated dreamed that some Mexicans 
were holding his feet to a flame to make 
him confess the secrets of alchemy. A 
woman subject of the same experiment 
dreamed that she was a bear 1)eing taught 
to dance over hot iron plates. 

Applying to the feet a cloth saturated 
with ice water will usually induce a dream 
of walking over snow or ice in the bare 
feet. Uncovering the sleeper's feet and 
legs to the atmosphere of a cold room 
will usually induce the dream that he is 
walking somewhere divested of his 
nether garments—a dream which occurs 
to us often and which is accompanied by 
a sense of deep embarrassment, for we 
usually picture ourselves in a public place, 
gazed upon by astonished multitudes. 
And when we awake we find that we have 
kicked off the covers. 

Dreams of flying through the air are 
induced by admitting a strong draught of 
air to the room of the sleeper and allow¬ 
ing it to blow over his bed. It is also 
said that those who sleep face downward 
are especially liable to dream of flying, 
from the rhythmic rise and fall of the 
chest in breathing. Tickling the sleeper 
with a horsehair or a straw will induce 
dreams of insects, which often assume 
marvelous proportions and hideous 
forms. The sharp banging of a door 
often suggests a dream in which the re¬ 
port of a gun or pistol is heard. Shadows 
flitting about the room are believed to 
supply much food for dreaming. 

DREAM SENSES. 

In dreams we see more than we hear. 
During a dream storm we often see the 


lightning, but seldom hear the thunder. 
While dreaming we furthermore hear 
more than we feel, feel more than we 
taste and taste more than we smell. It 
has been demonstrated that the ear is 
more sensitive during sleep than in wak¬ 
ing moments. It receives innumerable 
molecular vibrations otherwise imper¬ 
ceptible. 

Odors perceived during sleep also form 
food for dreaming. A physician required 
to spend the night at the ill-smelling place 
of a cheesemonger dreamed that he was 
sealed up in an immense hollow cheese, 
where an army of rats were running over 
his naked bddy. 

Tastes exert a similar agency. Former 
Surgeon General Hammond. U. S. A., 
told the story of a young woman who put 
aloes on her thumb to cure her baby habit 
of sucking that member. She dreamed 
that she crossed the ocean in a vessel of 
wormwood, and that she tasted its bitter¬ 
ness whenever eating or drinking. Her 
dream took her to England, where a phy¬ 
sician treated her with ox gall, and to 
Rome, where the Pope ordered her to eat 
a piece of Lot's wife turned to salt, from 
whom she broke a thumb, which she 
placed in her mouth. When she awoke 
she was sucking her own thumb and all 
of the aloes had disappeared. 

A neurologist applies in his dream 
studies an opththalmoscope—the glass 
commonly used by oculists to examine 
the inner workings of the eye. He has 
discovered that much of the real food for 
dreams is contributed by opaque particles 
upon the eye, and that these in the wak¬ 
ing state appear projected into space as 
spots, lines, drops and twisted bodies. 




492 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


SEEING SNAKES. 

The dreaming eye actually sees, al¬ 
though the sleeping room be pitch dark. 
Proteplasm in every cell of the body con¬ 
tains phosphorus. The eyelid is to a cer¬ 
tain extent luminous and in the dark 
serves as a screen against which foreign 
substances in the eye are seen. Twitching 
blood vessels and their corpuscles are 
similarly shadowed. All of these objects 
appear to be five or six feet away. Their 
dark shadows are believed by this spe¬ 
cialist to suggest the objects which set the 
dream mechanism in motion. The chang¬ 
ing blood pressure through the retina is 
found to produce various colors. 

Why drunkards “see snakes” was late¬ 
ly learned by aid of the ophthalmoscope 
applied to alcoholics. During delirium 
tremens and other advanced stages of al¬ 
coholism the blood vessels of the retina 
enlarge and are black with congested 
blood. Their movements projected upon 
the field of dream vision appear exactly 
like the twisting and squirming of ser¬ 
pents. 

In the dreaming state the mind is found 
to work backward. Effect suggests cause, 
whereas, to the waking consciousness, 
cause suggests effect. A breeze blowing 
over us produces an effect which, when 
we are asleep, suggests as a probable cause 
that we are flying through the air. But 
the dreaming brain, like the savage brain, 
has but feeble appreciation of the logical 
relation of cause and effect. Simple 
resemblances of form, color, sound, etc., 
will bring together dream images with¬ 
out any sensible “relationship. Bad dreams 
are sometimes so vivid as to drive men 
to permanent insanity. Cowper's mad¬ 
ness is said to have been due to this cause. 


Association plays an important part in 
our dreams. A man who, while living 
abroad where a peculiar perfume was 
commonly used, invariably dreamed of 
that place when this perfume was dropped 
upon his pillow during sleep. 

We often dream our dream images for 
some seconds after awakening. They are 
discovered to remain as long as the posi¬ 
tion of the eye continues unchanged. This 
phenomenon is offered as an explanation 
for many ghosts claimed to be seen imme¬ 
diately after slumber, before the dream it¬ 
self is yet remembered. 

Dreams are caused by small quantities 
of blood left in the vessels of the brain. 
Sleep results from a draining of the blood 
in the brain, as has been proved by a series 
of experiments in which the skulls of 
dogs were trephined, the extracted but¬ 
tons of bone being replaced by watch 
crystals. Through these disks of glass 
it was noticed that when the animals fell 
asleep their brains, previously red, would 
turn pale and collapse. At the instant of 
awakening the blood returned. A touch, 
sound or other stimulus to the senses 
during sleep would cause the brain to 
grow larger and become more saturated 
with blood. Insomnia results from any 
overstrain of mind or body which dilates 
the blood vessels of the brain. 

ACTUALLY WEIGHS DREAMS. 

An instrument which demonstrates the 
relationship between dreams and brain cir¬ 
culation is known as the “tilt board.” A 
long tray, about the length and width of 
a coffin, but more shallow, is occupied 
by a man lying supine. He is so arranged 
that during his waking state the tray 
balances exactly upon a knife blade. He 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE, MIND AND SOUL 


493 


is then put to sleep with the aid of an 
“alouette"—or hypnotic mirror. As 
sleep gradually overpowers him the half 
of this scientific seesaw containing his 
head gently rises, and when deep sleep 
has set in the end containing his feet 
drops upon a rest provided. \\ hen 
dreams are induced by any of the experi¬ 
mental methods described herein, the end 
of the tray containing the sleeping brain 


will descend to a depth proportionate to 
the dream's vividness. 

The explanation of the experiment is 
very simple. As the brain is drained of 
blood for sleep the head becomes lighter 
and that end of the balance rises. As 
small quantities of blood return to supply 
the flitting dreams it falls slightly. Thus 
may our dreams be actually weighed. 


MIRACLES. 


HISTORY AND THEORIES OF 

MODERN WONDER WORKERS. 

Ste. Anne de Beaupre. on the St. Law¬ 
rence twenty miles below Quebec, is the 
most noted faith-cure place in Canada. 
So great were the numbers of pilgrims to 
the shrine of Ste. Anne that a railroad 
was built solely to accommodate the af¬ 
flicted travelers, and countless visitors at¬ 
test to the most astonishing cures wrought 
there upon them. 

Its origin is attributed to an incident in 
tlfb early history of the settlement at 
Quebec. Some Breton sailors, overtaken 
in a terrific storm, prayed together this 
prayer: “O God. have mercy upon us, 
for our boats are so small and Thy sea 
is so large. Holy grandmother of Christ, 
look down pityingly upon us. Lead us 
safely to land and at the place where our 
feet touch: we will there erect to you a 
memorial chapel of our gratitude." Im¬ 
mediately the storm subsided and they 
were soon safely ashore at Petit Cap. 

The little wooden chapel they erected 
was soon destroyed by storms. Louis 
Guimont, living near, decided that it must 
be rebuilt with stone. He was a sufferer 
afflicted with a disease that had kept him 


bent double for twenty years, but he de¬ 
termined to roll the first three stones to 
their places with his own hands, dedi¬ 
cating, as he did so. the first to the Savior, 
the next to his Holy Mother, and the next 
to his sainted grandmother. 

The moment that the third stone was 
set in its place, a new vigor began to 
surge through his nerves and veins. He 
leaped up and proclaimed his miraculous 
cure through all the regions round about. 
The afflicted came from every direction 
to place a stone in the wonderful structure 
and with each was performed a new 
miracle. 

Twelve years later the fame of the place 
had gone forth with such numbers of au¬ 
thentic cures that a dispensation was 
granted to recognize the presence there of 
the Saint by sending to it part of her fin¬ 
ger bone. On March 12, 1670. it was for 
the first time solemnly exhibited to an 
adoring congregation, and since then it 
has been the greatest wonder-working 
shrine in America. 

MARVELOUS CURES WHERE 
DOCTORS FAILED. 

In a recent city fire a cripple received 
the use of his limbs under the most re- 






v,n 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


markable circumstances. He had been 
used to crutches for a number of years, 
and for a long period was a helpless in¬ 
valid. At the time of the outbreak he 
lay asleep in his attic bed, and it was 
feared that the firemen would he unable 
to reach him. But he was roused by the 
noise of the falling roofing and jumped 
from his bed in a terrible fright. Forget¬ 
ful of his infirmities, he ran down stairs 
and into the street, and not until he wa? 
safe amongst the dense crowd of spec¬ 
tators did he realize the miraculous cure 
which the fright had wrought. 

SAVED BY SHIPWRECK. 

An equally wonderful cure was re¬ 
corded on the occasion of the wreck of 
the steamship “Nepaul” on the Shagstone. 
On board the vessel was a gentleman who 
had been a helpless cripple for nearly 
twenty years. He could not move any¬ 
where unassisted, and had to be wheeled 
about on a wicker bed-cart. He was ly¬ 
ing on deck in this cart when the ship 
struck. White and trembling with fright, 
he sprang from the vehicle and dived into 
the sea. Fortunately, he was rescued, 
and ever since has had the free use of his 
legs, to the astonishment of the many 
London specialists who had all consistent¬ 
ly declared him to be incurable. 

Sight was restored to a blind ship¬ 
wright in the Devonport dockyard by the 
miracle of fright. Oddly enough, it was 
in a similar accident to that which had 
caused his blindness. For thirtv-two 
years he was totally blind, owing to a 
heavy blow on the head from a piece of 
iron falling from a huge tank in course of 
erection. About five years ago he was 
visiting the scene of his former labors, 


when a similar piece of work was in 
progress. Suddenly a beam gave way. 
fhe alarm was given, and in the rush 
“clear” the blind man ran to safety—and 
sight! 

In the historic burning of Exeter 
Theatre a deaf mute received both speech 
and hearing. She was the adopted child 
of a cleaner, and when the terrible out¬ 
break occurred she ran from the building 
screaming wildly. For several years her 
faculties remained apparently unimpaired, 
and then suddenly she again became deaf 
and dumb. 

WALKED INTO THE SEA. 

At Thurlestone the story is handed 
down from parents to children, of how a 
young lady named Murgaton regained 
speech. The poor young creature, be¬ 
sides being dumb, was an incurable som¬ 
nambulist, and all the efforts of friends 
to cure or check her had been in vain. 
One midnight she rose in her nightgown, 
and passing out of the house, walked 
straight down to the beach and into fhe 
sea. The sudden chill roused her, and 
the sight of the roaring waters of the 
English Channel before her so alarmed 
her that she screamed for fright and 
rushed back to land, now thoroughly 
awake. Then her joy knew no bounds, 
for the terror had brought back to her 
the gift of speech, and she lived for many 
years after that event in the full enjoy¬ 
ment of all her faculties, and completely 
cured of sleep-walking. 

Fright was also responsible for the 
now famous cure of Karl Effenbach, who 
had been paralyzed for over ten years. 
After frequent persuasions he decided to 
try the miraculous waters at Lourdes. 







































BOOK OF THE TIMES 


49G 


The year he went the shrine was at the 
zenith of its fame, and it will be remem¬ 
bered that one day so great was the crowd 
that a panic was caused by a trifling ac¬ 
cident, and many persons were injured in 
the stampede. What was the cause of 
terrible injuries to others brought relief 
to Effenbach. He was lying on the couch 
in the thick of the crowd, attended by a 
couple of friends. Then came the rush. 
The paralytic was terrified. He sprang 
from his couch and mingled with the 
surging throng. The couch was smashed 
to atoms. An hour later he was dancing 
with wild joy in his hotel, while his 
friends looked on amazed at the man who 
that morning had been carried a helpless 
invalid to the sacred water. 

A railway collision at Clapham Junc¬ 
tion a few years ago, brought sight to 
a gentleman who had been totally blind 
since his third year. He was traveling in 
a second-class compartment at the time 
of the accident, and was on his way to 
spend his summer holidays at Bourne¬ 
mouth. His wife was reading the day’s 
news aloud to him, when crash the train 
went into another standing in the station. 
The panic was terrible, but the most tense 
scene was enacted in this compartment. 
The screams of his wife were drowned in 
his own exultant cries. 

“I see! I see! I see!” he kept repeat¬ 
ing-, almost unheedful of the cause of the 
miracle. It all happened in a moment, 
for the carriage lurched over, and it was 
another miracle that its occupants 
escaped. 

IN THE HOUR OF NEED. 

“L-look out!” were the first words of 
a collier named Maddi.ck after being dumb 


for fourteen years. Readers who have 
spent a holiday at merry Matlock know 
that at one part of the river boating acci¬ 
dents are common, unfortunately, often 
attended by loss of life. About three 
years ago this man, while strolling 
through the gardens, saw a boating party 
rapidly approaching a dangerous spot. 
Added to their ignorance of the river, 
they were incompetent oarsmen. He 
watched them for some time, but was 
quite unable to make his meaning clear to 
them by his frantic gestures. At length 
they were dangerously near the deathtrap, 
and almost immediately voice seemed to 
come to him, for he shouted with the 
strong lungs of a healthy man: 

“L-look out!” 

It saved the boaters, and the man has 
ever since been able to use his voice 

FATIGUE—ARE WE EVER REAL¬ 
LY TIRED?—OPINIONS OF 
EMINENT SCIENTISTS. 

Fatigue is a complex phenomenon; its 
most apparent manifestation is the grad¬ 
ual diminution of functional power—the 
difficulty of continuing work that has 
been begun. But there is in fatigue a 
considerable psychic element. The phys¬ 
ical phenomena that are the consequence 
of prolonged labor give to the mind the 
autosuggestion of the impossibility of 
acting, considerably before this impossi¬ 
bility really supervenes. M. Dubois, of 
Berne, has with justice dwelt on this fact. 
He says: 

“Soldiers are on the march; they have 
traversed a long road. They can go no 
farther and lie down by the roadside, de¬ 
claring that they are incapable of going 
•another step. Let an officer appear who 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOUL 


497 


knows how to raise the morale of his 
troops, and let him order the band to play, 
and you will see these men take up their 
march almost at a quickstep. 

“Were these men worn out? Xo; for 
in that case it would have been necessary 
to give them rest or food, or to leave 
them where they might be picked up by 
the ambulance. They were tired; but 
under the influence of fatigue their 
morale had weakened, and they viewed 
their fatigue through the magnifying- 
glass of their pessimism. The word of 
their chief, the music, put new life into 
them, enabling them to resume their 
march. The knowledge of imminent dan¬ 
ger. or of the presence of an enemy, 
would have acted in the same way and 
given them again the use of their legs.” 
He adds: 

“I do not wish to assert that an action 
on the senses can have no direct influence 
on the muscular force: various physio¬ 
logical experiments seem to show that it 
may. But I refuse to recognize any so- 
called ‘dynamogenic’ action in the facts 
here detailed. 

“Encouragement creates no force: it 
can only set free pre-existent energies. 
Rest and food alone can restore to an 
organ the strength that it lacks, the for¬ 
mer enabling the cell to eliminate its tox¬ 
ins and the latter carrying to it nutritive 
material. 

“A psychic excitant acts in another way 
on the elements of the thinking brain, 
which are much more delicate and mo¬ 
bile. It dissipates sad humors and what 
we call fatigue. Finally, just as the con¬ 
viction of powerlessness makes one pow¬ 
erless. strength may return again with 
the feeling that one possesses it. 


“M. Tissie, in his interesting work on 
‘Fatigue and Physical Training,' cites 
several examples of this psychic influ¬ 
ence : 

“During the bicycle race from Paris 
to Brest and return. Terront. overcome 
by sleep after sixty-six hours on the road 
and three nights without rest, fell by the 
way. He had no wish to go on, but his 
brother urged him to do so. He was re¬ 
placed on his machine, and after moving 
along hesitatingly for a few minutes he 
started off in excellent form and won the 
race in a brilliant finish. 

“After his ride of 1.000 kilometers 
(621 miles), which had lasted forty-two 
hours, this same rider * * * affirmed 
that he could do 100 kilometers more, if 
they would place him again in the sad¬ 
dle. 

“Victory does not belong always to the 
army that can boast of the fewest casual¬ 
ties, but to that which knows how to re¬ 
sist psychically and to advance at the 
proper moment. 

“Examples are numerous: ‘A battle 
lost,’ said Suvaroff to Joseph Le Maistre, 
‘is a battle that is believed to be lost.’ 
‘There are in war,’ said Prince Frederick 
Charles after Rezonville, in 1870, ‘other 
factors besides those of tactics or strat¬ 
egy, namely, those of moral superiority, 
and there are cases where we should rely 
on the latter in the face of the former.’ 

“ ‘European states,* wrote M. F. Reg- 
nault, ‘accumulate formidable engines of 
war; fortresses, cannon, guns—all are of 
the last degree of perfection. The num¬ 
ber of combatants is immense: it is a na¬ 
tion in arms. But is any thought taken 
for the moral factor? Evidently not. 
And nevertheless this moral factor is the 




408 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


whole thing, with millions of people sud¬ 
denly torn from their firesides and filled 
with fear. Formidable masses without 
cohesion—a terrible instrument that no 


hand knows how to wield. The moral 
element is the king of battles.’ 

“Above the muscular act stands a psy¬ 
chic act, conscious and superior.” 


MARVELOUS RESULTS OF HEREDITY. 


Heredity is defined as “the law through 
which the individual receives from his 
parents by birth his chief vital forces and 
tendencies, his physical and spiritual capi¬ 
tal.” 

Environment, the events and conditions 
that surround him after birth, are govern¬ 
ing factors in molding his career and life. 
“Like produces like." “When the fathers 
have eaten sour grapes the children’s 
teeth are set on edge." The following 
seven laws of hereditary descent are now 
generally accepted: 

1. Direct heredity, or the usual laws 
of heredity, wherein the child resembles 
its parents. 

2. Revisional heredity, or atavism, 
where the child resembles its grandparents 
or a remote ancestor. 

3. Collateral heredity, where the child 
resembles an uncle, aunt or some collateral 
relative. 

4. Co-equal heredity, which creates 
and maintains about an equal number of 
the sexes. 

5. Pre-marital heredity, where a child 
of a second or third marriage resembles 
the husband of a previous marriage. 

6. Pre-natal heredity, where the con¬ 
ditions and characteristics of the mother 
before the birth of the child are trans¬ 
mitted. 

7. Initial heredity, or the transmission 


of the temporary mood of the parents to 
the child. 

EXPERIMENT OF EMPEROR. 

Heredity is transmitted in face, form 
and feature, in size and form of body, 
color of eyes, and hair, voice, manner, in 
organic qualities, mental, moral, physical, 
in disease tendencies—in short, physio¬ 
logically and pathologically. We have all 
read of Frederick William I and his 
favorite regiment or bodyguard of giants 
whom he required to marry women of 
equal size. Their offsprings were of 
gigantic size and the descendants are said 
to be the most superb specimens of physi¬ 
cal manhood in Germany today. 

Race peculiarities, family and individ¬ 
ual characteristics, ail are hereditary. 

However, there are many exceptions 
to the general rule that like produces like. 
Nature plays strange freaks. For genera¬ 
tions she seems to have stored up and 
accumulated vital force, mental and moral 
energy and at last to have concentrated 
it all in one fortunate individual, whom 
we call a genius, but in doing so she fre¬ 
quently exhausts herself, for the off¬ 
spring of the genius is often a mediocre, 
or even worse. 

All know that longevity is hereditary. 
The well equipped life insurance com¬ 
panies have reduced their estimates of 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIXD AXD SOUL 


man's expectancy almost to an exact 
science. 

HEREDITY AND ANIMALS. 

Superior breeds of live stock, horses, 
cattle and dogs, are not produced by 
chance or accident, but by the most care¬ 
ful selection and breeding. Human be¬ 
ings have ceased to regard this as a 
theory, and have come to acknowledge it 
as a fact, yet how few practice it in pro¬ 
ducing offsprings. 

The best live stock will degenerate into 
“scrub stock” and fine breeds of dogs 
into curs if allowed to cross and hybridize 
promiscuously. Is the rule different with 
human beings? Natural law undoubted¬ 
ly tends to elevate the race of men, just 
as it does the races of the lower animals, 
but is it fair or just to ourselves, claiming, 
as we do, to be rational beings and know¬ 
ing the operation of nature's laws, to shift 
all the responsibility on natural law r The 
race of men of the year 2,000 will doubt¬ 
less be superior to the race of men of the 
year 1.000, but how infinitely superior 
the race could have become, even in this 
comparatively short period, had it aided 
nature’s laws and bestowed on itself only 
the care it has upon the breeding of 
horses. 

How can we breed sound stock—sound 
mentally, morally and physically? What 
combinations can we form to eliminate 
certain undesirable traits, liabilities and 
tendencies and render 11s immune from 
disease? Health is the normal and disease 
is the abnormal condition. Nature will 
sift and restore, in a measure, the ills and 
disorders of the flesh, but human agencies 
can greatly aid nature. 


4 ( J 9 


NEW FIELD FOR SCIENCE. 

Hie chemist studies to produce certain 
results from certain combinations. Why 
does not medical science tell 11s how to 
obtain the best results by crossing certain 
family traits and characteristics and how 
to eliminate disease and constitutional dis¬ 
order by similar methods? 

What future searcher after truth will 
discover the panacea of perfect physical, 
mental and moral manhood? Who will 
endow a school for the systematic in¬ 
vestigation of the laws governing 
heredity? Our philanthropists seem more 
disposed to endow sanitariums and hos¬ 
pitals for the care and attempted cure of 
diseased creatures after they are thus 
monstrously and wilfully produced. Why 
not teach and require the sound and pure 
and virtuous to seek one another; thus 
leaving the unsound and vicious and de¬ 
graded to seek their kind? Extinction 
awaits the latter all the sooner. Dis¬ 
eased organisms will die eventually unless 
crossed with sound stock and supplied 
with fresh blood. What scientists will 
teach us the avenue of escape from this 
ancestral heritage of woe ? How can we 
separate the chaff from the wheat in our 
composition and winnow it away? How 
can we drain off the poisonous pollutions 
from the blood? A person whose brain 
is affected with the disease known as in¬ 
sanity is prohibited by law from entering 
into a marriage contract and propagating 
his kind. Why not prevent persons af¬ 
flicted with other malignant diseases, 
such as consumption, paralysis, cancer, 
the loathsome diseases and nervous dis¬ 
orders productive of insanity, from en¬ 
tering into marriage contracts and in- 




500 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


creasing human burdens and endangering 
human life and health? 

Other forms of disease as well as in¬ 
sanity are dangerous to society and the 
state. Why not suppress and prevent 
them? Why not strike at the primary 
cause by enacting and enforcing rigid 
laws, as in case of contagious diseases and 
consanguinity, and thus eradicate the evils 
of disease and substantially stamp it out, 
root and branch ? 

FORMULA OF HEREDITY. 

If there is a science of heredity, why 
not master it? If it can be expressed in 
mathematical formula, let us familiarize 
ourselves with its equation. Let X, the 
first member of the equation, represent 
the individual. Let the total heritage 
from all his ancestors represent the second 
member of the equation, thus, X equals 2 
parents, plus 4 grandparents, plus 8 
great-grandparents, etc! Thus consid¬ 
ered, the two parents contribute )A, the 
four grandparents ]/$, the eight great- 
grandparents l /$, etc., of the total herit¬ 
age of the offspring. 

Or, in other words, each parent con¬ 
tributes }4, each grandparent 1-16, each 
great-grandparent 1-64, etc. Is one's 
composition numerically determinable ? 
Some writers on heredity believe so, 
and have in a measure adopted the fore¬ 
going method of numerical representa¬ 
tion. Who knows but in future the re¬ 
sponsibility of the criminal may be fixed 
by mathematical rule? For instance a 
thief, the son of a thieving father, is 
a natural thief, whereas a thief the de¬ 
scendant of one thieving grandparent is 
only 1 -16 a thief. To overcome the thiev¬ 
ing in the first instance requires four times 


as much resistance as in the latter. In the 
first case the proportions are Y honest 
heritage versus J4 thief, whereas in the 
latter they are 15-16 honest heritage 
versus 1-16 thief. Hence justice and 
equity would demand that the punishment 
in the latter case be four times more 
severe than in the former. We often 
hear the expression, “Let the punishment 
fit the crime." Here, then, is a rule that 
enables us to mete out a sentence com¬ 
mensurate with the guilt. 

In R. L. Dugdale's book, entitled “The 
Jukes," the descendants of one neglected, 
wayward, vicious girl are traced through 
several generations with the following re¬ 
sults : 

“During six generations 62.40 per cent 
of the female descendants were vicious 
and abandoned. Among the women there 
were seven and one-half times more pau¬ 
pers than among the average women of 
the state, and nine times more among the 
male descendants. Among 700 cases 280 
were pauperized adults and the investiga¬ 
tion extended to only one-third of the 
family. Of these 700 only twenty-two 
had acquired property and eight had lost 
it, seventy-six were convicted of crimes 
and punished, and more than double that 
number were thought to be criminals.” 

PAST DIRECTING PRESENT. 

All this proves how necessary it is for 
each one to study his ancestry and buckle 
on his armor in the struggle against pos¬ 
sible hereditary vices. The past is largely 
directing the present. Life’s coloring is 
borrowed from the pigments and reflect¬ 
ed from the canvas of bygone ages. Give 
me sufficient data wherewith to analyze 
the characters of an individual’s ancestors 




501 


PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


for four generations back and I will tell 
you who and what he is or is capable of 
being. 

Let me paint you a picture. You are 
the apex of an inverted pyramid. You 
bear upon either shoulder an ancestor. 
These in turn bear upon their shoulders 
two other more remote ancestors and so 
ad infinitum. The processes of heredity 
are found to l)e wonderfully balanced and 
their equilibrium stable. Individuals dif¬ 
fer. but the general result is uniform. 
The man at the apex is burdened with the 
weight of generations of ancestral 
heritage and lie cannot get from under. 
He is the resultant of two forces, two im¬ 
mediate components, which in their turn 
are the respective resultants of other 
forces more remotely removed. He is 
the mean between these two components 
and yet a variable mean. Xo child is 
exactly like either parent. Where does 

IS CRIME A 

Dr. Edward Wallace Lee, who was one 
of the physicians in attendance upon 
President McKinley at his death, has de¬ 
voted much attention to the subject of 
crime and its causes. 

“I believe,” says Dr. Lee. “that the 
community in general is too much inclined 
to treat crime as our ancestors used to 
treat insanity. In those days an insane 
person was thought to be bewitched, pos¬ 
sessed of a devil, and the manner of treat¬ 
ment was cruel in the extreme. Flagella¬ 
tion and whipping were resorted to in 
order to drive out the evil spirit. 

“As the subject was studied scientific¬ 
ally, however, it became evident that in¬ 
sanity was a disease and it was cared for 


the child get traits possessed by neither? 
Manifestly they are handed down direct 
from some long-armed remote ancestor 
far up in this metaphorical pyramid. In 
holy writ we read that “the sins of the 
fathers shall be visited upon the children 
unto the third and fourth generation.” 
And we can readily imagine some sinewy 
armed, hoary headed old ancestral sinner 
equipped with a long blacksnake whip, 
provided with a keen scorpion-tipped lash, 
viciously scourging the bare back of his 
unfortunate descendant who is compelled 
to stand Atlas-like at the apex of this in¬ 
verted pyramid and bear the ancestral 
burden. 

There is an ancient Greek legend that 
pictures the malignant furies pursuing 
families from generation to generation 
and rendering them desolate and wretch¬ 
ed. The furies of the Greeks are the vices 
and hereditary diseases of today. 

DISEASE? 

properly, and often cured, without resort 
to dungeons and chains, various forms of 
barbarism and often death to the victim. 
Mind may be defined physiologically as a 
general term denoting the sum total of 
those functions of the brain which are 
known as thought, feeling and will. By 
disorder of mind is meant disorder of 
those functions. 

“From that standpoint we argue that 
with an anatomically defective brain you 
cannot get a normal mentality. Further¬ 
more. the brain is affected by disease or 
injury not only to itself, but to remote 
parts of the body which are connected 
with it through the nervous system. Only 
a few years ago the New York Medical 





502 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Journal published reports from institu¬ 
tions of the state showing that examina¬ 
tions of criminals serving terms revealed 
injuries to their brains. 

“Photographs were offered clearly 
proving that these men were of the most 
pronounced criminal type. Then, after 
thorough examination and proper diag¬ 
nosis, surgical operations were performed 
and other photographs were produced 
showing that they had been restored to 
normal physical and moral mentality. 

BULLET MADE PREACHER 
VICIOUS. 

“I knew a Baptist minister once,” con¬ 
tinued Dr. Lee, “who was educated and 
talented. At times he would deliver the 
most beautiful and learned sermons, and 
often before reaching the end he would 
fly into a passion and use the most ob¬ 
scene and profane language. Then he 
would go home, indulge in excessive 
drink, abuse his family and really en¬ 
danger the lives of all who came in con¬ 
tact with him. These spells would pass 
and he would again become normal. 

“I asked him once why this was so, and 
he told me that he had a bullet in his 
heart, received during his service in the 
civil war. Of course, I did not believe 
him and repeated examinations by myself 
and other physicians failed to detect any 
sign of such a condition. That was be¬ 
fore the day of the X-rays. 

“One day this man died after a fit of 
anger. A post-mortem examination was 
held and a minie ball was found in the 
muscles of his heart. The whole case was 
published in detail at the time in the 
Journal of the American Medical Asso¬ 
ciation. 


“I have known of cases where so re¬ 
mote an irritant as an ingrowing toe nail 
has produced epileptiform fits which 
would he preceded and followed by a 
change in the temperament and character 
of the individual, and which were entirely 
relieved by surgery. I have known wax 
in the ear to produce suicidal and homi¬ 
cidal tendencies, and many cases where a 
buzzing in the ear, caused by catarrh, has 
resulted in suicide. 

“Among the lower classes there is a 
common condition of microcephalic chil¬ 
dren—that is, children horn with small, 
hard heads. In some instances, surgery 
has relieved this by removing portions of 
the skull and permitting the brain to de¬ 
velop. Many such attempts, however, 
have been unsuccessful, hut is it not better 
to risk death than to allow the child to 
grow up into an idiot or a criminal ? 

“Of course, the whole question re¬ 
solves itself into that mysterious vital 
spark of which neither science nor re¬ 
ligion has the faintest comprehension. 
The physical conditions that produce 
criminals may he traced to heredity in 
many cases. How are they to be pre¬ 
vented? By stopping the birth of crim¬ 
inals? To make a model man, as some 
one has said, we must begin on his great¬ 
grandfather; or, as somebody else has 
put it, it takes three generations to make 
a gentleman. 

EDUCATION NOT A PANACEA. 

“The celebrated Dr. Maudslev says that 
so much in human development being due 
to education, it is evident that the train¬ 
ing which a person undergoes must have 
a great influence on the growth of his 
intellect and the formation of his char- 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD AXD SOUL 


503 


acter. What he shall be and what he 
shall do will be determined in great meas¬ 
ure by what has been done to bring into 
full activity the capabilities of his nature. 

“But great as is the power of educa¬ 
tion, it is yet a clearly limited power—■ 
limited by the capacity of the individual 
nature—and can only work within this 
Jarger or smaller circle of necessity. 

“Education can plainly act only, first, 
within the conditions imposed by the 
species, and secondly within the condi¬ 
tions imposed by the individual organiza¬ 
tions; cannot, for example, ever teach a 
man to fly like a bird, see like an eagle, or 
run like an antelope; cannot make a Soc¬ 
rates or a Shakespeare of every being 
born into the world. 

“Xot until comparatively lately has 
much attention been given to the way in 
which criminals are produced. It was 
with them much as it was at one time 
with lunatics; to say of the former that 
they were wicked and of the latter that 
they were mad was thought to render 
any further explanation unnecessary and 
any further inquiry superfluous. It is 
certain, however, that lunatics and crim¬ 
inals are as much manufactured articles 
as are steam engines and calico printing 
presses, only the processes of the organic 
manufactory are so complex that we are 
not able to follow them. 

“All persons who have made criminals 
their study recognize a distinct criminal 
class of beings who herd together in our 
large cities in a thieves’ quarter, giving 
themselves up to intemperance, rioting in 
debauchery, without regard to marriage 
ties or the bars of consanguinity and 
propagating a criminal population of de¬ 
generate beings. It is furthermore a 


matter of observation that this criminal 
class constitutes a degenerate or morbid 
variety of mankind marked by peculiar 
low physical and mental characteristics. 

ARE EASILY DISTINGUISHED. 

“They are, it has been said, as distinct¬ 
ly marked off from the honest and well 
bred operatives as ‘black-faced sheep' are 
from other breeds, so that an experienced 
detective or prison official could pick them 
out from any promiscuous assembly at 
church or market. Their family likeness 
betrays them as fellows. They are often 
deformed, with ill-shaped, angular heads; 
stupid, sullen, sluggish, deficient in vital 
energy and sometimes afflicted with epi¬ 
lepsy. 

“Crime is a sort of outlet in which 
their unsound tendencies are discharged. 
They would go mad if they were not 
criminals, and they do not go mad be¬ 
cause they are criminals. 

“To return to the question of surgery, 
however," continued Dr. Lee; “it is a 
fact that the vicious habits of children, 
due to physical defects, may be and have 
been relieved by surgical operations, 
whereas if these had not been performed 
they would have, as has been clearly 
shown, drifted into lives of depredation, 
caused by weakened will power. 

“Of course, the little bit of skull press¬ 
ing down upon the brain may produce 
various effects in various men, although 
it is almost invariably a form of disease. 
Generally, it develops criminals, but 
sometimes it brings forth geniuses. Na¬ 
poleon, one of the world’s greatest men, 
was an epileptic: hence his eccentricity. 
Dr. Johnson was a victim of scrofula, and 




504 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


hence his melancholy. There are count¬ 
less instances. 

“To my mind, the only effective man¬ 
ner in which to prevent crime is to have 
a system of thorough examination of the 
criminal classes, so far as they can be 
discovered; and by this I mean in every 
way, mentally, physically, chemically and 
bacteriologically. Surgery and medicine 
will do the rest. 

“No fear of the practical ill conse- 
quences to society need deter us from 
looking on criminals as the unfortunate 

THE STRANGE CASE 

Helen Adams Keller was born deaf, 
dumb and blind, June 27, 1880. 

This woman's achievement is without 
parallel in the history of intellectual feats, 
for never before has a human being, 
handicapped as Miss Keller is, secured an 
academic degree. The story of her battle 
for an education is a story of struggle 
against and triumph over obstacles whose 
very enumeration may well cause amaze¬ 
ment to the most determined. 

EDUCATION IS BEGUN. 

It is through sheer pluck that she has 
secured her knowledge. From infancy 
she was blind and deaf and dumb, and up 
to the age of seven she had absolutely no 
means of communicating with her fellow 
men. But she had the senses of taste and 
touch and smell to aid her to knowledge, 
and in her seventh year a course of in¬ 
struction was begun. 

Before long her mind had quickened 
to an appreciation of the outside world, 
and it was not many years until the idea 
was born in her brain that she wanted an 


victims of a vicious or defective organiza¬ 
tion and a bad education. But what in 
this age it would seem right that we 
should do is to get rid of the angry feel¬ 
ing of retaliation which may be at the 
bottom of any judicial punishment, and 
of all penal measures that may be in¬ 
spired by such feeling. Society having 
manufactured its criminals has scarcely 
the right, even if it were wise for its 
own sake, to treat them in an angry spirit 
of vengeance.” 

OF HELEN KELLER. 

education. Obstacles? There were no 
obstacles that could not be overcome by 
the determination she felt in her own 
soul, this frail girl told herself, and she 
announced that she intended to go to 
college. 

GOES TO RADCLIFFE. 

By the most arduous toil and by in¬ 
tellectual labor almost inconceivable for 
a person blessed with all faculties, Miss 
Keller prepared herself for the difficult 
Harvard entrance examinations, and in 
June, 1899, passed the preliminaries with 
entire success. She was aided in the 
work only by Arthur Gilman of Cam¬ 
bridge, who read the papers to her in the 
sign manual and tutored her for the en¬ 
trance requirements. It was found im¬ 
possible to hit on any way of teaching 
her experimental physics, but its alterna¬ 
tives, text-book physics and astronomy, 
were substituted. 

The latter she learned by means of a 
planetarium, upon which she could feel 
the position of the heavenly bodies. With 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


505 


mathematics, including geometry and al¬ 
gebra, she had much trouble, for she is 
by no means clever in these branches, but 
history, English, French, Latin and Greek 
were all mastered through hard work. 


her answers, Miss Keller did not avail 
herself of the aid of her old-time teacher 
and interpreter, Miss Sullivan, who could 
have spelled the questions to her through 
the fingers. Instead, the papers were 



Helen Keller and her teacher, Miss Sullivan. 


WINS CLASSIC HONORS. 

The preliminaries safely passed, Miss 
Keller took the final entrance examina¬ 
tions in 1900 and again passed with fly¬ 
ing colors. I11 order to avoid the least 
suggestion of assistance while writing 


given to her in Braille characters, and she 
wrote the answers on her typewriter. In 
advanced Latin she passed “with credit*' 
and in advanced Greek “with honor.” 
At last she was in college, doing the work 
to which she has so long looked forward. 























506 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


BUSY IN COLLEGE. 

How it impressed her she told in a 
theme published in the Radcliffe Maga¬ 
zine, March, 1901: 

“There are disadvantages in going to 
college. I find,” she wrote. “The one I 
feel most is lack of time. I used to have 
time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. 
But in college there is no time to com¬ 
mune. One leaves the dearest pleasures 
—solitude, books, imagination—outside 
with the whistling pines and the sunlit, 
odorous woods. It is impossible, I think, 
to read four or five different books in dif¬ 
ferent languages and treating of widely 
different subjects in one day and not lose 
sight of the very end for which one reads 
-—mental stimulus and enrichment. Just 
now my mind is so full of heterogeneous 
matter that I almost despair of ever being- 
able to put it in order.” 

TAKES REGULAR COURSE. 

In her freshman year Miss Keller was 
promoted from the English 22 class to 
English 12, a promotion never made ex¬ 
cept because of extraordinary progress. 
No special concessions have been made to 
her and she has obtained her degree ab¬ 
solutely in the regular course. Of the 
subjects offered by Radcliffe many were 
shut out from a blind person, while others 
were impossible for a person both deaf 
and blind. Miss Keller's work has thus 
included no work in fine arts, music, 
drawing, chemistry, botany, zoology or 
geology. The courses she has taken have 
been in French, German, English com¬ 
position, Milton, government, economics, 
history of mediaeval Europe, Shakes¬ 
peare, Elizabethan literature, English 
Bible. English literature of the nineteenth 


century, history of philosophy and Latin. 

At lectures Miss Sullivan acted as the 
ears of Miss Keller. While the instructor 
talked, her fingers spelled into the pupil’s 
hand what he was saying. 

WRITES OUT LECTURES. 

In translation courses Miss Keller 
would follow with one hand the text on 
the big book in front of her, while into 
the other Miss Sullivan would spell the 
instructor’s comments. Each day after 
lectures Miss Keller wrote out on her 
Braille machine all that she could recol¬ 
lect of what had been said. 

One difficulty to be met was the lack 
of books in the language of the blind. 
Through the generosity of William 
Wade, however, many books were made 
specially for Miss Keller. But in all 
cases it was not possible to obtain books. 
In the history courses, for instance, a vast 
amount of collateral reading was neces¬ 
sary, and an enormous area of ground 
had to be covered through Miss Sulli¬ 
van's spelling passages into Miss Keller’s 
hand. 

Through all the toilsome days of her 
college course Helen Keller did not neg¬ 
lect outside interests. In her freshman 
year she was elected vice-president of her 
class, and again in her senior year. 

AIDED BY CLASSMATES. 

Several of her classmates learned to 
talk with her in the manual language. 
She walks, rows and rides a bicycle, and 
is fond of dancing. Her chief pleasures 
in college, however, have been the con¬ 
quering of the difficulties confronting her 
ambition to take the full course as other 
girls who have all their faculties. She 
thus referred to her college life recently: 





PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


507 


“I have groped my way through col¬ 
lege, reaching out in the dark pathway 
for wisdom, for friendship, and for work. 
I have found much work, abundant 
friendship and a little wisdom, and I ask 
for no other blessedness.” 

On June 28, 1904, the day after her 
twenty-fourth birthday, she was gradu¬ 
ated, receiving the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts from Radcliffe College, with the 
further distinction of “cum laude.” On 
her certificate is written in Latin an in¬ 
scription which testifies that she is espe¬ 
cially skilled in all branches of English. 
Thus ends the educational career of this 
remarkable young woman, who, though 
deaf, dumb and blind from the age of 
eighteen months, has required only two 
years more than girls with all their facul¬ 
ties to complete the same course of study. 

At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 
October 18 was set apart as a special day 
in her honor. An enormous concourse of 
visitors was present to hear her. 

WHAT THE BLIND GIRL SAID. 

In the course of her address Helen 
Keller said: 

“I have been asked to come here today 
and lend my voice to what is being done 
in the world for the uplifting of those 
who struggle in unequal and untoward 
circumstances. All these great halls of 
machinery and art are the achievement 
of the strength of man when his arm is 
free and his spirit unbound. In the midst 
of so much mighty achievement it is grat¬ 
ifying to know that man has not forgot¬ 
ten his weaker brother. 


'T have come, not for aught that 1 
have done, but for what has been done to 
me to raise me to the level of those who 
see and hear. I testify to what the good 
and strong have done for deprivation and 
infirmity. I enter with you into com¬ 
munion of living speech and for the joy 
of speech I express my heartfelt gratitude 
that the impediment of dumbness has 
been removed from my tongue. Such is 
my brief but earnest message to those 
who have asked me to come and to those 
who sit before me. 

HER MESSAGE TO THE WORLD. 

“Now I say what seems to me to be 
the message of this exposition to all peo¬ 
ple: The exposition is a great manifes¬ 
tation of all the forces of enlightenment 
where man’s thousand torches burn to¬ 
gether. The value of everything here and 
of everything everywhere is educational. 

“The exposition is what its distin¬ 
guished founders intended it to he, a 
world’s university. Here the spirit of 
civilization stands forth illuminating and 
enlightening those who walk in darkness 
and silence. 

“The service of man to man shines all 
the brighter through these circumscribed 
individuals. All these great halls tell me 
the world is on our side. The forces 
there displayed hold up my hands and 
support my weakness. Science, nature 
and art say to me: ‘Thou art deaf and 
blind, but enter thou, too, into the king¬ 
dom of God.’ 

“God bless the nation that provides 
education for all her children.” 



508 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


WHY WE PRAY WHEN WE ARE IN TROUBLE. 


The undoubted habit of civilized men 
and women the world over to resort to 
prayer when in acute distress, no matter 
what their religion may be, gives evidence 
of a human instinct which neither argu¬ 
ment nor disappointment is able to eradi¬ 
cate. Pursuing this line of reasoning a 
recent contributor to the London Spec¬ 
tator points out that those who desire to 
be delivered from some sudden pain or 
peril dp not ask to have words found for 
them in which they may express them¬ 
selves, and they do not turn to the Lord's 
Prayer of the Bible. 

Christ suggested to all men to pray 
every day for the means of livelihood, 
and His followers, by their own account, 
prayed for temporal blessings. Our Lord 
Himself—with the reservation of com¬ 
plete obedience to God’s will—prayed fer¬ 
vently that the doom He foresaw might 
be averted. Again, it is almost impos¬ 
sible to distinguish between spiritual and 
temporal benefits, so complex is the world 
we live in. Most men in the present day 
simply could not pray for what seems to 
them a miracle. When the doctor tells 
us that life is extinct we have not the 


power to pray that that life may return 
to the body; but who can tell how many 
calamities may have been avoided by a 
spiritual suggestion? To deny that in¬ 
stances of answers to prayer have oc¬ 
curred is, in the opinion of the present 
writer at least, to shut one’s eyes to evi¬ 
dence. 

“The explanation of the whole matter 
which commends itself to our mind is 
this—that prayer is a beneficent force to 
which our instinct bears witness. That 
which we so dimly realize, our Lord, with 
His infinitely greater spiritual sensitive¬ 
ness, clearly saw—so clearly that He 
could hardly find words strong enough to 
express His meaning, or to impress it 
upon the minds of his followers. He 
speaks as though those who pray put in 
motion some force whose working: is as 
certain as that of any law of nature, and 
He teaches this as part of the Christian 
faith. But exactly how that law works 
we do not know, and He did not explain. 
Why He did not every man must decide 
for himself in accordance with the dog¬ 
matic medium through which he is able 
to receive the Christian verity.” 


DIVINE BENEVOLENCE AND HORRIBLE DISASTERS. 


CHRISTIAN FAITH IN THE MIDST 
OF DESTRUCTION. 

The circumstances that try our Chris¬ 
tian faith and introduce distressing 
doubts of God’s special providence, as of 
His justice and kindness, are not essen¬ 
tially different from those which task our 
intelligence and try our hearts in the ordi¬ 
nary course of human affairs. You see 


the good and the bad, the important and 
the insignificant, the faithful and the un¬ 
believing, whelmed in a common fate, the 
victims of a sudden stroke of misfortune, 
a petty accident, itself without necessity 
or excuse, and yet so mighty and awful 
in its instant consequences—doubtless 
tends to suggest a sense of the reign of 
chance, the dominion of pitiless, indis- 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE , MIND AND SOUL 


509 


criminate law of blind force, terribly 
shocking to filial confidence, to belief in 
a personal superintendent and direct and 
punctilious governor of the universe. 


come to wither or come to bless the sea¬ 
sons and the nations. If you undertake 
to run any gauge of merit, or even fitness, 
through the dealing of death, or pesti- 



The “General Slocum” as she started up the East River at nine o’clock on the morning 

of June 15, 1904. 


General calamities, like general bless¬ 
ings, fall on whole eras, whole cities, 
whole races, whole neighborhoods, whole 
families. War, peace, famine, plenty, 
pestilence, health, make no distinc¬ 
tion in favor of individuals when they 


lence, or war, you must know that you 
will find no satisfaction in your inquiry. 
It is not the bad who die early, nor is it 
the good. It is not the worthless, nor is 
it the exalted whom pestilence smites. 
They seem impartial and indiscriminate. 

































510 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


W hoever is found on their ground, no 
matter what his character or claims may 
be, how insignificant or how important, 
falls before them. There seems to lie 
neither an eye to merit, nor to what we 
think importance, in the allotments of ex¬ 
ternal misfortunes. 

ALIKE TO THE LOWLY AND THE 
GREAT. 

Lightning just as naturally and piti¬ 
lessly strikes down a king as his meanest 


ing broken her heart. Yet there is no 

o 

rule even for this. 

The good, the deserving, the excellent 
are often visited with long life, experi¬ 
ence, great outward prosperity: are un¬ 
expectedly spared in danger. 

The only thing that the providence of 
God would seem determined to impress 
upon us is the utter folly of attempting 
to read its counsels or taking any method¬ 
ical account of its dealings in individual 
instances. It baffles all our penetration, 



The “Genera! Slocum” as she lay in Hell Gate less than two hours later. Nearly a thousand 
women and children were burned or drowned through the burning of this Sunday ex¬ 
cursion steamer. 


subject: shipwreck visits a vessel freight¬ 
ed with a thousand souls with as little 
compunction as a pilot boat. Death de¬ 
stroys more infants than old men; nor is 
there the least apparent discrimination of 
tenderness shown to human worth. 

The good mother is taken from her 
orphans: the only child from his virtuous 
parents. The bad often live on to tor¬ 
ment their protectors and supporters. 
The drunkard survives the faithful wife 
he has beaten into her grave, after hav- 


upsets all our calculations, and denies us 
the possession of any means of anticipat¬ 
ing or of accounting for its modes of 
action in particular cases. 

God’s natural mode of action would be 
by miracle, by constant interpolation, or, 
perpetual and direct exercise at His will, 
applied to every specific occasion. A 
Being everywhere present, all-wise, om¬ 
nipotent. can find no difficulty in such 
universal directness and immediacy of 
action ! WTiy, then, is the world in which 

















PROBLEMS OF LIFE. MIXD A.XD SOI L 


511 


we live ami the universe we are acquaint¬ 
ed with so undeniably not governed ' v 
miracle, so obviously not g> >vemed 1 v in¬ 
terpositions and special appliances and 
accommodations on the part f the Deity? 

God benevolently puts the seeming re¬ 
straint of what we call law—that is. a 
regular method of acting—upon Himsel 
for our sakes: t<> create a domain i li' - 
erty for us to move in: certain < >pportuni- 
ties of foresight, calculation, reliance, on 
which we can depend and which form the 
only possible basis of a human, rational 
and moral existence. 

UNCHANGING, UNCOMPROMISING 

LAW. 

All the so-called laws of nature are of 
this character—though in appearance 
only—self-acting, rigid, uncompromising 
and maintained in their general, impar¬ 
tial. and therefore often promiscuous and 
sweeping operation, for the sake of man's 
education which is found in struggling 
with and understanding them, using 
them, avoiding the penalties of their in¬ 
fraction. enjoying the advantages of 
obedience to them. 

Many suffer by the exceptional evils 
involved in this method adopted for the 
general good: and not only for the gen¬ 
eral good, but the good of every individ¬ 
ual who belongs to this c mmon human¬ 
ity. But. being ch« >en. because it is for 
the general good, it would he an act of 
unkindness on the part of the Deity to in¬ 
terrupt its operation when it presses cruel¬ 
ly upon the exceptional cases. 

Xor. indeed, would these laws, which 
are as yet only partially known, ever be 
discovered in all their benignant tenden¬ 
cies were not the violations of them 


attended with frightful consequences, 
which create earnest and profound in¬ 
vestigation' that carry out and up the 
human intellect and advance the interests 
of society. And when I speak of dis¬ 
obedience to those laws. I do not mean 
only willful and conscious neglect or 
breakage, but also innocent and uncon¬ 
scious—for we learn from both. When 
the inm cent suffer, as Christ's own case 
sufficiently illustrates, they suffer from 
the guilty and are the means of doing im¬ 
mense services for society. 

Supp< -se only the worthless, and the 
vile, and the ignorant were subject to 
shipwreck and pestilence—who would 
care t< investigate their causes or to allay 
their c-'nsequences? And this explains 
an- 'ther difficulty, which perplexes most, 
namely, that the general laws of nature 
operate not only without any allowance 
for exceptional cases, but quite independ¬ 
ently of moral desert. 

WHY EVIL EXISTS BY THE SIDE 
OF GOOD. 

It is - lie of the greatest proofs of God's 
universal love f< r the man that He mixes 
up the good and the bad in a common ex¬ 
ternal fortune and refuses to treat them. 
' far as outward circumstances are con¬ 
cerned. in separate departments. 

He thus rebukes that self-complacency 
and selfishness which would otherwise 
corrupt even the better portion of the 
race. He says to the intelligent, the good, 
the orderly, the cautious and the wise: 
"You shall not only suffer the conse¬ 
quences of your own faults, but you shall 
even be involved in the external conse¬ 
quences of the faults and mistakes and 
follies of the unwise, the weak, the pre- 




512 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


cipitate and the wicked, that you may un¬ 
derstand that you are members one of an¬ 
other, bound to be, hands and feet, heart 
and brain, prudence and goodness, not 
only for yourselves, but for all other men 
less fortunate than yourselves.” There is 
a special tenderness, wisdom and love in 
God—nay, a special justice, too—in thus 
mixing up all conditions, classes, ages and 
degrees of moral desert in a common 
calamity today, in a common benefaction 
tomorrow, that He may bind us together 
and perfect that fusion and unity which 
Christ came from heaven to establish and 
whose recognition involves the present 
and final happiness of our race. 

THE WAGES OF JUSTICE. 

But what, you may say, becomes of 
God’s justice, what of moral distinctions, 
what of a wise discrimination, if God, 
being actually present and enforcing His 
own will, can whelm in common misfor¬ 
tunes hundreds of human beings unequal 
in desert, opposite in character, vastly dis¬ 
similar in wants and in responsibilities. 
“Master, carest Thou not that we per¬ 
ish ?” 

Why does justice, pity, love permit this 
gross confounding of good and bad, of 
innocent and guilty? 

But what have justice, pity and love to 
do in the sphere of what is, for the high¬ 
est and kindest ends, meant to be brute 
force, rigid, immoral, unconscious mat¬ 
ter? That is a part of creation that God 
has not made and could not make with¬ 
out defeating its very purpose, otherwise 
than blind and deaf to all moral distinc¬ 
tions. 

Shall a good man expect his teeth not 
to ache, or only his conscience not to 
ache? Shall a wise man expect his body 


to be any stronger, less exposed to in¬ 
jury from heat and cold, than a foolish 
man, or only his mind to be stronger and 
less exposed to ignorance and supersti¬ 
tion? In short, we must look for moral 
discriminations, moral equity, moral re¬ 
wards and penalties in the moral sphere; 
in the fortunes of the mind and heart 
and conscience, not in the fortunes of the 
body and limbs. 

CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECTED 
DUTY. 

So far as we neglect our duty, darken 
our consciences, harden our hearts, reject 
our Savior, break our Maker’s laws, 
stain our bodies, abuse our earthly home, 
squander our time, bury our talents, we 
are now perishing. The wildest ocean 
could not quench, the fiercest fire could 
not burn, as sin now quenches the soul's 
light, as sin now shrivels the soul’s life. 

God is, meanwhile, imploring us by his 
Son, by our own consciences, by His 
written and by His unwritten Word, not 
to perish—to clothe ourselves in the 
adamantine garments of righteousness 
that cannot burn, when hay and stubble 
shall turn to ashes; to put on that robe 
of faith our Lord gave Peter, which shall 
buoy us up beyond the power of any 
waves. Behold, Christ no longer asleep 
in the hinder part of the boat, but here 
awake, standing behind the thin veil of 
these elements that are His body and His 
blood, and saying to the storms of the 
world: “Peace, be still” ; saying, in an¬ 
swer to your prayers: “Master, carest 
Thou not that we perish?”—“He that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live; and whosoever liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die.” 






Six hundred and forty-one passengers drowned in the sinking of the Scandinavian steamer 
“Norge” at Rockwell reef, northwest coast of Scotland. 

















614 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


WHY DO WE LAUGH? 


There certainly was a time when man 
or his simian ancestor clid not know how 
to laugh. What caused him first to open 
his mouth and emit broad guffaws? It 
seems to be generally agreed among the 
evolutionists that laughter came rather 
late in the life of the race as a luxury. 
It is not so old as the mimic reflexes of 
fear, anger, surprise or the various de¬ 
fensive movements which were formerly 
voluntary. No one ever had to laugh as 
a means of self-preservation or menace. 
What, then, was the nature of- the pre¬ 
historic gesture? 

M. Vanlair rejects in a general way 
the theory that man first laughed over his 
food; that as the mouth, in uncivilized 
society was—and still is—wide open in 
the process of eating and as gorging was 
the chief pleasure in the life of aboriginal 
man the law of association gradually 
made the opening of the lips into a sym¬ 
bol of pleasure. The French scientist has 
a more comprehensive theory to expound. 
He believes that laughter grew out of the 
expansivenes of the whole human organ¬ 
ism in the relaxation that was made pos¬ 
sible when danger was removed. All ani¬ 


mals shrink into themselves in times of 
peril. When the danger is passed the 
creature “mobilizes its members," to use 
the psychologist’s phrase, just as in civ¬ 
ilized society a man “expands" in jovial 
surroundings or “thaws out" in the sun¬ 
shine of quiet contentment. That which 
grew into a laugh might have become a 
twitching and quivering of the whole 
body had not the expression fortunately 
been limited by processes of natural se¬ 
lection to the face. True, a few people 
still laugh with their feet, but had laugh¬ 
ter developed as it began we should laugh 
all over to such an extent that we should 
daily run the risk of dying of apoplexy. 

The notion that the cat-laugh is the 
quintessence of humor M. Vanlair rather 
rejects as fanciful. So, too, he would 
probably repudiate the grimace with 
which Superintendent Price’s tame fox in 
the Middlesex fells greets its master—a 
grimace which the owner feels certain is 
one of pleasure. The right to hold both 
one’s sides with laughter, according to 
this French scientist, belongs pre-emi¬ 
nently to mankind. 


IMPORTANT INCIDENTAL FACTS. 


DO ANIMALS FAINT? 

A little gray dog tumbled headlong 
into the area of a house in a West End 
square, and the maid who happened to be 
standing there closed the gate. When 
the dog saw she was safe from her pur¬ 
suers—two huge bull terriers—she top¬ 
pled over in a dead faint. The other ser¬ 
vants, who crowded out into the area to 


help bring the little animal to, derided the 
assertion, but a veterinary surgeon who 
finally joined the group said there was 
nothing preposterous about it. 

“Of course she fainted !" he said. “Lots 
of animals faint. Cats and dogs, and 
even more stolid animals, keel over in 
moments of fear and exhaustion. In the 
case of horses the prostration is generally 




PROBLEMS OF LIFE, MIND AND SOUL 


515 


attributed to sunstroke, but quite often 
they are knocked out by a plain, every¬ 
day faint instead of atmospherical ex¬ 
cesses. Fowls faint, too, and the birds of 
the air. In fact, it is hard to find any 
living creature that doesn't topple over 
under crucial circumstances.” 

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOB. 

Regarding the actions of mobs and 
crowds a writer on psychology says : “A 
crowd is not an aggregation. It is an 
individual mind, impulsive and erratic, 
with its moral or ethical level generally 
much below that of minds that have lost 
their individuality in it. The personality 
of the men in a mob is lost, for it is recog¬ 
nized that back of the avowed causes of 
human actions are unconscious motives 
or forces that defy investigation and that 
these are the mainspring of crowd activ¬ 
ity. These motives or forces are the com¬ 
mon characteristics of the race, and in 
these points people are more alike than 
in the acquired characteristics that come 
with education. 

“These forces are primitive, so that 
crowds are generally incapable of rising 
above primitive actions. And it is this 
that explains in part how otherwise re¬ 
spectable people will assist at lynchings 
and even at torture. Some of the char¬ 
acteristics of the mob are a sentiment of 
invincible power, the force of suggestion 
and contagion. The force of numbers 
and sense of irresponsibility add to this 
sense of power. The soldier in battle is 
braver and stronger—or more cowardly 
and panic-stricken—than when thinking 
independently. 

“By means of suggestion and contagion 
the individuals in the crowd are put into 


a sort of hypnotic state. The power of 
the subjective mind is seen and the per¬ 
sonal will and objective mind disappear 
for the time being. Hence mobs are im¬ 
pulsive and mobile. They are aroused 
one minute to acts of generosity and hero¬ 
ism and descend the next to extreme vio¬ 
lence and torture. They are credulous, 
believing things that would be absurd to 
one outside the sphere of crowd influ¬ 
ence.” 

INTELLECT AND EMOTION. 

It is a law of the human mind that the 
emotions are excited only by an im¬ 
pressionist view of things, and that the 
analysis of these things destroys the emo¬ 
tional effect and substitutes for it an in¬ 
tellectual excitement. The analysis of 
any particular object in nature absolutely 
kills it as a source of poetry, romance or 
devotion. Where botany begins the po¬ 
etry of the flowers ends. Where the 
study of theology as a science begins re¬ 
ligious ecstacy ceases. Where the mas¬ 
tery of the theory of music begins the 
normal enjoyment of music is lost. On 
the same principle the study of the mech¬ 
anism of the heavens is fatal to any poeti¬ 
cal or devotional inspiration from the 
starry' sky'. 

This appears at first sight to attach a 
penalty to science, but, if Lord Bacon's 
opinion is of any weight, it puts a pre¬ 
mium on it, for he remarks on the fact 
that the pleasures of the intellect far out¬ 
weigh the pleasures of imagination and 
emotion. This is explained in the fact 
that emotions constantly vary in force 
while intellectual satisfaction is per¬ 
manent. 






51G 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THOUGHT THE PRODUCT OF 
MENTAL CRYSTALLIZATION. 

In a clear liquid, charged invisibly with 
molecules having an affinity for one an¬ 
other, a hazy point of condensation ap¬ 
pears. If uninterfered with this point 
rapidly hardens, other molecules flock to 
it from all sides, a law of combination 
manifests itself, the molecules arrange 
themselves in a definite order, falling into 
rank by numberless millions, until the eye 
of the fascinated beholder sees a beautiful 
crystal, its sides and angles shaped with 
the perfection of nature, developed as if 
by magic out of apparent nothingness, or 
out of disordered chaos. 

Crystals fall under certain recognized 
general forms, each having a great di¬ 
versity of special developments, although 
the broad features of every fundamental 
form are always distinguishable. Thus 
there are cubic crystals of immense va¬ 
riety, rhombic crystals, equally varied, 
and so on. 

Similarly men’s minds fall under cer¬ 
tain broad types, admitting of great di¬ 
verseness in detail, and according to the 
type of his mind will be the process and 
the products of a man’s thinking. Let the 
same fundamental idea form in the minds 
of two men, and let each of them develop 
it according to the bent of his mind, and 
how strikingly different the results will 
be! 

One has a poetic and another a philo¬ 
sophic or a scientific intellect. These are 
general types. Then each individual has 
his own peculiar mental bias and that 
forms his individual style, which we can 
recognize in his writings and in his 
speech. 

Thus each of us is known both by type 


and by the particular form of his 
thoughts, which are the crystals of his 
mind, and it is possible to predict the de¬ 
velopment of an idea in any chosen mind, 
as is exemplified not only by the works 
of poets, novelists and artists, but also 
by the characteristic methods of men of 
affairs. 

LIGHT AND PROGRESS. 

From the smoky rays of the first flar¬ 
ing brand of the cave-dweller, to the elec¬ 
tric light, filling the most spacious halls 
with its glory and making the streets of 
our cities luminous as the day, the way 
has been paved with human effort and 
illumined by human genius. 

The pine torch was no doubt coeval 
with fire in the hands of men. The resin¬ 
ous knot was the first step in artificial 
illumination. Its use js found in every 
savage tribe and nation, while it is a 
necessity in the lives of all first settlers 
in new countries. When the nineteenth 
century dawned, the children of America 
were learning to read by the light of pine 
knots and the crackling of logs of an open 
fire-place; so closely are we related to 
what may seem the remote past. 

It is hard to believe that the world 
groped on to the thirteenth century with¬ 
out discovering even the tallow candle; 
yet so it is. The expression that “man¬ 
kind was plunged in darkness during the 
early ages" is true in every sense. It was 
perhaps the accidental burning of a bit of 
fat of some slain animal that suggested 
its use as a luminant, while the hollow 
shell from the sea, a concave rock, or a 
mold of sun-baked clay held the fat, 
which was burned by placing a rush in 
the fat, with the lighted end projecting 





PROBLEMS OF LIFE . MIND AND SOUL 


517 


over the edge of the rude dish. Step by 
step the lamp was fashioned into a thing 
of beauty, though barely a joy forever. 
Thus came the first improvement in the 
art of domestic illumination. 

Not until about 1830 did our fathers 
have a match to carry in their pocket. Up 
to that time they must light their pipe 
with an ember or by the tinder box. 
Should the fire of the hearth go out he 
must revive it by steel and flint or make 
a hurried trip to the neighbor’s to secure 
his fire. At an early hour on a cold morn¬ 
ing this was no pastime. 

The common kerosene lamp, with its 
chimney of glass, its varied forms of 
beauty, its shades modified to every grade 
of vision and of taste, suggests the rela¬ 
tion of man to light. The oil, natural, 
cheap, brilliant and volatile, was long 
known to civilized humanity as a crude 
outflow from the earth. It was not until 
about 1845 that the iridescent scum seen 


floating on the surface of a stream near 
Pittsburg suggested to thoughtful men to 
dig for a greater supply. Indians came 
from a distance and soaked it from the 
water with their blankets which they 
wrung out into vessels in order to secure 
a quantity for some secret purpose. When 
the American found it he was rich beyond 
computation, at the same time providing 
at a small cost the best fuel and the cheap¬ 
est light for the common people. It was 
not until i860 that it passed into common 
use. Since that time it has driven everv 

J 

form of wax, grease, fluid, camphene, and 
whale-oil lamps from the common use of 
mankind. 

From the clouds overhead, lowering 
along the horizon as the sun goes down, 
Franklin and Edison have drawn the elec¬ 
tric fire and in our chambers darkness is 
unknown. All the way from the pine 
knot to a nightless day has been won 
from the darkness in a lifetime. 












' 






■ 

. * 




* 



BOOK VII 


Remarkable Appearances 

AND 

_ s 

Evolutions in Nature 


WITH THEIR 

RELATION AND SIGNIFICANCE 
TOWARD THE UTILITIES 
OF HUMAN LIFE 


A VIEW OF MAN’S MASTERY OVER HIS SURROUNDINGS, 
SHOWING THE MANY STRANGE DEPARTURES 
FROM COMMON TYPES • 






Changes of time. British troops enacting the Battle of the Pyramids. They have occupied 
Egypt since October, 1882, and are now making this ancient country an integral part of 
the British empire. 


















REMARKABLE rfte and EVOLUTIONS 
APPEARANCES IN NATURE. 



WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 


BIG TREES. 

HE Mariposa and Calaveras 
groves of California contain 
trees above 400 feet high and 
nearly 100 feet in diameter, 
whose age is estimated by the best sci¬ 
entific authority to be near five thousand 
years. Their parents grew in the Mio¬ 
cene period of geological eras. They have 
no near kinship with any other existing 
forms of vegetation and stand alone as 
the sole surviving relics of an ancient 
world. 

As some of the smaller ones have been 
cut into lumber strange histories are re¬ 
vealed. Marks of great forest fires are 
recorded on their trunks even back be¬ 
fore the time cf Christ. Fewer than five 
hundred of the greater ones now remain. 
The Mariposa grove is now reserved 
from destruction through an act of the 
California legislature making it the prop¬ 
erty of the state and the Calaveras grove 
is likewise saved as a National Park. 

One of the trees cut down showed by 
an actual count of the annual rings to be 
2.200 vears old. Another that had been 
blown down in a storm had 4,000 of those 
rings. 

Elsewhere in the world, notably in 
India and the Amazon region, are trees 
of immense age. but none so venerable as 
the Sequoia Gigantca of California. 


The effects of certain tremendous for¬ 
est fires occurring centuries ago are reg¬ 
istered in the trunks of these trees and the 
record completely concealed by subse¬ 
quent healthy growth. Among a number 
of similar cases the most instructive rec¬ 
ord of these ancient forest fires was ob¬ 
served in a tree of moderate size—about 
fifteen feet in diameter—five feet from 
the ground. It was 270 feet in height 
and 2,171 years old. 

This tree when felled had an enormous 
surface burn on one side, thirty feet in 
height, and occupying eighteen feet of the 
circumference of the tree; this was found 
to have been due to a fire occurring in 
A. D. 1797. The tree when cut, in 1900, 
had already occupied itself for 103 years 
in its efforts to repair this injury, its 
method being the ingrowing of the new 
tissue from each margin of the great 
black wound. When the tree was cut the 
records of three other fires were revealed. 
The history of the tree was as follows: 

HISTORY OF ONE REDWOOD 
TREE. 

271 B. C. it began its existence. 

The first year of the Christian era it 
was about four feet in diameter above 
the base. 

245 A. D., at 516 years of age, oc¬ 
curred a burning on the trunk three feet 



521 
















522 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


wide. One hundred and five years were 
occupied in covering this wound with 
new tissue. For 1,196 years no further 
injuries were registered. 

1441 A. D., at 1,712 years of age, the 
tree was burned a second time in two 
long grooves, one and two feet wide, re¬ 
spectively. Each had its own system of 
repair. 

One hundred and thirty-nine years of 
growth followed, including the time oc¬ 
cupied by covering the wounds. 

1580 A. D., at 1.851 years of age, oc¬ 
curred another fire, causing a burn on the 
trunk two feet wide, which took fifty-six 
years to cover with new tissue. 

Two hundred and seventeen years of 
growth followed this burn. 

1797 A. D., when the tree was 2,068 
years old, a tremendous fire attacked it, 
burning the great scar eighteen feet wide. 

One hundred and three years, between 
1797 and 1900, had enabled the tree to 
reduce the exposed area of the burn to 
about fourteen feet in width. 

It is to be noted that in each of the 
three older burns there was a thin cavity 
occupied by the charcoal of burned sur¬ 
face, but the wounds were finally fully 
covered and the new tissue above was 
full, even, continuous, and showed no 
sign of distortion or of the old wound. 

The recuperative power of these trees 
thus demonstrated has encouraged the 
forestry doctors to believe they can keep 
the Grizzly Giant and his aged com¬ 
panions alive for many human genera¬ 
tions yet to come. 

OLDEST TREES ON EARTH. 

The baobab trees of Senegambia are be¬ 
lieved to be the oldest trees on earth. 


Some scientists have put the age of one of 
these at 6,000 years, and the conscien¬ 
tious Livingstone was positive that one 
he examined was not less than 1,400 years 
old. This is the tree that sends out the 
immense branches that bend to the ground 
for support, although they grow some¬ 
times to a length of seventy-five feet be¬ 
fore they bend. One of these trees with 
ground-resting branches covers such an 
area that it is a public hall, its portals 
being ornamented by quaint, rude sculp¬ 
tures cut out of the living wood. 

There is a legend about a tree of Thibet 
called the “tree of ten thousand images/’ 
which runs like this: Far aw r ay in the 
dreary land of Ambo in Thibet is a green 
valley in which, in a Tartar tent, was 
born a wonderful boy named Tsong-kaba. 
From his birth he had a long white beard 
and flowing hair and could speak perfect¬ 
ly his native tongue. 

His manners were majestic and his 
words were full of wisdom. When he was 
three years old he resolved to cut off his 
hair and live a solitary life. So his mother 
shaved his head and threw his long, flow¬ 
ing locks upon the ground outside their 
tent door. From his hair sprung the 
wonderful tree. 

Tsong-kaba lived many \ears, did 
countless good deeds, and at last died; but 
the tree which had grown up from his 
hair lived long, and they called it “the 
tree of ten thousand images,” This was 
long before the Christian era, but it is 
the testimony of the French missionaries 
that the tree lives yet. The leaves are al¬ 
ways green ; the wood is of a reddish tint 
and has an aroma as of cinnamon. 

The bark of the tree is marked with 
symbols in the Thibetan language: alpha- 



I 


REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


523 








_,*idr, •. * r 

VArNTtg M 

fev j|^ i 




Jp| 

-* ' 


' 4 ; 













1 tJM 

Kg 


f X -* 






Sax v 

I*- #3*1 

l i V'" 


Many trees in the Calaveras and Mariposa groves of California stand from 275 to 335 feet 

high and are from 25 to 34 feet in diameter. 










524 - 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


betic characters also appear in green on 
every leaf. The branches are descril>ed 
as being spread out like plumes of feath¬ 
ers crowning a trunk only eight feet high, 
but of great girth. Two French mission¬ 
aries who saw the tree were convinced 
1 

that the marks upon it were of natural 
growth. 

WIZARD PLANTS. 

Eccentric vegetation is confined to no 
tropic or zone or country. In Madagas¬ 
car is to be found a tree known as the 
“traveler’s tree,” because of its beneficent 
quality of providing pure fresh water on 
demand to the weary and thirsty way¬ 
farer in that far-off land. 

This tree has the appearance of a huge 
fan, with a rather unwieldy handle. The 
body of the tree rises thirty feet, at which 
height the leaves radiate from opposite 
sides of the stem. These leaves are eight 
feet long and stand on a leaf stalk six 
feet in length, and there are twenty to 
twenty-four of these leaves on a single 
stem, spreading out like an open fan. 

In the dry season, when all seems arid 
and parched, the traveler or domiciled 
native has to pierce one of these trees at 
the point where the fanlike crest has its 
beginning and out will flow pure, fresh 
water, as cool as if it had been raised in 
the “old oaken bucket” from the depths 
of a well. 

But its uses as a vegetable fountain are 
not the only ones it has to commend it 
to the people of the island. From the 
leaves are formed the strong, serviceable 
thatched roofs of the houses for dwellers 
on the eastern side of the island. The 
stems of the leaves are used for parti¬ 
tions, and sometimes even for walls of 


the houses. The outside bark is laid for 
flooring, and the leaves again, when beat¬ 
en flat, serve not only for tablecloth, but 
for the plate from which one may eat 
when seated before such tablecloth. 

COW TREE OF VENEZUELA. 

In Venezuela is the vegetable wonder 
known as the “cow tree.” This tree 
grows on rocks where no other thing 
thrives. Its leaves are leathery and crisp, 
but by making incisions in the trunk a 
peculiar grayish milk oozes out, which is 
tolerably thick and of an agreeable balmy 
smell. 

The natives gather around these trees 
at sunrise, bringing large bowls to re¬ 
ceive the milk, for toward noonday the 
heat of the sun changes the milk to sour. 
However, the milk will harden into a 
toothsome gum, much as the familiar 
breaking of the milkweed’s stalk by 
schoolboys will bring the white juice of 
that weed, which the air turns to gum. 

It is a puzzling sight to the stranger to 
see the trunks of these trees bristling 
with plugs, as he will see them, for the 
drawer of the milk from a hole in the 
tree will plug it up when his needs are 
supplied, to keep the tree from unneces¬ 
sary waste. v 

Three old trees are the “butter tree’’ 
of Central Africa, the “manna tree” of 
Calabria and the “tallow tree” of Mala¬ 
bar. The first bears a nut from the ker¬ 
nel of which the natives produce a butter 
which African travelers say much resem¬ 
bles butter obtained from cow’s milk and 
will remain sweet a year. 

The “manna tree” is so called because 
from a sap. which is trapped in August, a 
sweet gum is evaporated which has no 




REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


little food value. The “tallow tree" of 
Malabar yields from the seeds of its fruit, 
by boiling, an excellent tallow, which 
serves as an illuminant, both as oil and 
by candle made from it. 

A remarkable tree flourishes on the 
island of Fierro, one of the larger of the 
Canary group. The island is so dry that 
not even a rivulet is to be found, and for 
that absence of water a curious compensa¬ 
tion is made. The leaves of this tree are 
long and narrow, and they continue green 
the year through. The mystery of this 
tree is a cloud that hovers about it con¬ 
stantly; this is condensed to water, which 
saturates the leaves, and falling from 
them in drops, keeps the cisterns, which 
are in excavations beneath them, always 
full of water. It is the absence of water, 
save this so strangely collected by the 
rain tree, that keeps the island sparsely 
populated; for the trees are few, and the 
supply of water is not sufficient for a 
larger population. 

SOAP TREE OF FLORIDA. 

In this country are two strange crea¬ 
tions among trees—the “soap tree, 
which grows in Florida, although it is not 
indigenous, and the “witch tree.” The 
latter is more properly, perhaps, a brush 
or shrub, and is peculiar to the Tuscarora 
gulches in Nevada. 

The “soap tree” was brought from 
lapan, where it is common. It is a pro¬ 
lific bearer of berries about the size of a 
cherry, and of the yellow color of a bar 
of soap. From these berries, boiled with 
the hard black seed they contain, a good 
soap is made. In Japan the berries are 
used as a substitute for soap just as they 
come from the trees. 


bib 


The “witch tree" is a dwarf tree, its 
stem rarely as large around as a man's 
arm, and seldom taller than eight feet. 
It has innumerable branches and inter¬ 
twining twigs. Its foliage is so luminous 
that at night it can be distinguished a 
mile or more away, and in close proxim¬ 
ity to one of these trees fine print is easily 
read. 

This tree is evidently a species of bay, 
and the luminous property of its leaves is 
parasitic. It consists of a gummy sub¬ 
stance, which, upon being transferred to 
the hand by the rubbing of leaves upon 
it, imparts the same phosphorescent glow, 
while the glow disappears from the leaves. 

A unicpie tree on the Island of Goa, 
near Bombay, is the “sorrowful tree,” as 
the natives term it. That name is given 
to it because the tree has a drooping ap¬ 
pearance during the daytime. But its 
aspect changes as the sun goes down; 
then its leaves open and fragrant blos¬ 
soms come into bloom upon it. The mo¬ 
ment the sun shows itself in the east the 
blooms close, the leaves begin to droop 
and the petals of the blossoms fall to the 
ground. 

WHISTLING TREES. 

Among the curiosities of tree life is the 
sofar, or whistling tree, of Nubia. When 
the winds blow over this tree it gives out 
flute-like sounds, playing away to the 
wilderness for hours at a time strange, 
weird melodies. 

It is the spirits of the dead singing 
among the branches, the natives say; but 
the scientific white man says that the 
sounds are due to a myriad of small holes 
which an insect bores in the spines of the 
branches. 




526 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The weeping tree of the Canary Islands 
is another arboreal freak. This tree, in the 
dryest weather, will rain down showers 
from its leaves, and the natives gather 
up the water from the pool formed at the 
foot of the trunk and find it pure and 
fresh. 

The tree exudes the water from innu¬ 
merable pores situated at the base of the 
leaves. 

In Japan they have a tree called the 
smoking tree. It is a small tree and has 
little to attract attention were it not for 
the fact that most of the time a little 
cloud, apparently of smoke, hangs over 
it a few feet above the topmost branches. 
It looks exactly as if the trunk of the 
tree were a smoking chimney. 

The phenomenon is caused by an 
emanation which the tree gives out under 
the effects of sunlight. 

In Ceylon grows a tree called “Eve’s 
Apple Tree.” It is the fruit of this tree 
which makes it remarkable. It is a beau¬ 
tiful fruit to look at, deep red on the in¬ 
side and orange on the outside, and out 
of each fruit a piece appears to have been 
bitten. 

The simulation of a fruit which has 
recently been bitten into is perfect. \ on 
can see the very marks of the teeth and 
anyone not knowing the facts would be 
deceived. 

For this reason, and because the fruit 
is a deadly poison, the natives declare 
that the tree is that which grew in the 
Garden of Eden, and was called the tree 
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

NATURAL THREAD AND NEEDLE. 

The wonders of botany are apparently 
inexhaustible. One of the most remark¬ 


able specimens is the Mexican maguey 
tree, which furnishes a needle and thread 
all ready for use. At the tip of each dark 
green leaf is a slender thorn needle that 
must be carefully drawn from its sheath; 
at the same time it slowly unwinds the 
thread—a strong, smooth fibre attached 
to the needle and capable of being drawn 
out to a great length. 

COW-ITCH OF AFRICA. 

“There is no vicious growth in Africa 
or the world,” writes a traveler, “to com¬ 
pare with the detestable thing popularly 
called ‘cow-itch’ and known to botanists 
as the mucuna bean. This is a plant hav¬ 
ing small seed pods covered with a close 
array of fine, silky hairs, which, when 
shaken loose, fasten in myriads upon the 
unconscious wayfarer and, reaching all 
parts of the skin, set up an irritation 
which words are literally powerless to de¬ 
scribe. A man attacked by this abomi¬ 
nable pest gives way for the time to abso¬ 
lute frenzy. If a precipice were at hand 
he might almost be forgiven for jumping 
over it, so wholly unendurable is that 
burning, pricking, clinging itch.” 

THE CAUSE AND USE OF THORNS. 

The influence of the environment is 
very great in the formation of thorns, so 
great in fact that we frequently find that 
a plant in one place has thorns and a few 
miles away is devoid of them. Observa¬ 
tion and experiment are in agreement in 
showing that three causes are in operation 
here, namely, impoverished soil, dryness 
of the atmosphere, and intensity of light, 
each of which provokes or accentuates 
the condition under discussion. In this 




REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IX XATL'RE 


527 


connection it is interesting to -tate that 
cultivation diminishes the number of 
spines and in many instances make- them 
disappear after several generati ns. 

M. Lhotelier has shown by a 1 < :ig series 
of experiments that thorny plants when 
submitted to the action of humidity tend 
to lose their spines, the reduction taking 


HOW DO THEY BENEFIT THE 
PLANT? 

It thus appears that thorns are the re¬ 
sult of insufficient nutrition, but this an¬ 
swer by no means exhausts the subject, 
for the question arises, what is the use 
of the thorns, and how do they benefit 
the plant? Grindon claimed that the 



Thorns of eglantine, sloe-tree and gooseberry. 


place in two ways. In the case of spines 
which are produced by modified leaves or 
modified stems, there is a tendency to re¬ 
vert to the primitive type, while in those 
which originate in stipules—an organ un¬ 
necessary to the life of the- plant—the 
spine diminishes and in many cases com- 
pletelv disappears. The partial depriva¬ 
tion of light also produces a more or less 
complete suppression of the thorns, as 
proved bv many authenticated instances. 


thorns have no use since they are found 
in a large number of families different 
both as to form and as to needs, but there 
can be but little doubt that the thorn is a 
means of protection to the plant and that 
its purpose is to inspire a healthy respect 
in quadrupeds. The thorn protects the 
creatures which earn* it. and whether the 
case be that of a hedgehog or thistle, beast 
or bird, it allows its possessor to the more 
effectually defend itself. 










528 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


A GREAT DISHRAG FARM. 

A novel enterprise, that of raising dish- 
rags, is being exploited by a number of 
southern California horticulturists, who 
received the inspiration for the scheme 
from Charles Richardson, whose gardens 
in Pasadena are becoming famous for 
their remarkable productions. Mr. Rich¬ 
ardson has successfully raised many 
growths new to American soil, and in 
1904 exceeded all his previous triumphs 
by raising thousands of dishrags. In 
1903 Mr. Richardson’s string beans, 
which measured forty-three inches in 
length, created a stir, but dishrag” vines, 
which, with their pendant dishrags, twine 
about orange trees, palms, evergreens and 
peach trees and peek in at the second 
story windows, bid fair to win the cham¬ 
pionship from the beans. These dishrags, 
or vegetable sponges, as they are some¬ 
times called, are indigenous to Africa, 
but now that it has been demonstrated 
that they will thrive in this country, they 
are bound to become a popular production. 
The seed looks like a cucumber, but when 
ripe the shell is broken and a sponge dis¬ 
closed. 


DEPTH OF ROOTS. 

The depth to which roots extend below 
the surface of the ground depends greatly 
upon the condition of the soil. In places 
where water stands continually only a 
short distance below the surface they pene¬ 
trate only to a moderate depth, the roots 
of the largest trees going down only from 
six to ten feet. 

On high land, in sandy soil, however, 
the roots of many trees extend to a depth 
of from twenty-five to fifty feet or more 
below the surface, and palm roots, includ¬ 
ing those of the Florida saw and cabbage 
palmetto, often reach immense depths. 
Saw palmetto roots were dug from a well 
in Eustis, Fla., some time ago at a depth 
of eighty feet, and they have been known 
to go down to the depth of a hundred 
feet in some of the Florida sand hills. 
In drilling a well recently at Winter 
Park, Fla., a root, or other part of a tree, 
was struck by the drill at a depth of 
seventy-four feet below the surface. The 
wood seemed to be a root of a saw pal¬ 
metto. And in drilling a well near San¬ 
ford, Fla., the drill went through the 
trunk of a bay tree sixty-three feet below 
the surface. 


AVERSIONS OF ANIMALS. 


Not only is it true that animals, both 
domestic and wild, show decided prefer¬ 
ences for certain persons, and a strong 
dislike to other individuals, but whole 
races of creatures often show a universal 
hatred toward other species. 

Perhaps the most interesting cases of 
dislikes are those which are inherited, 
fear of the natural enemies of a certain 
weaker species being so strong that even 
the young just born may experience it. 


All herds of cattle hate dogs instinctively. 
Can we not trace this to the time, long 
centuries ago, when the wild herds were 
always in danger of being attacked by 
wild dogs or wolves, which slunk about on 
the outskirts of the herd, and watched 
with hungry eyes every chance to cut out 
and pull down a helpless calf? 

To fight like “cats and dogs” has be¬ 
come a proverb, and we must admit that 
there is abundant basis for its truth. In 






REMARKABLE El’OLUTIOXS IX XATI’RE 


529 


domestic cats this is doubtless an inherited 
instinct, which in one of its larger rela¬ 
tives we can verify today. In India the 
tiger is king, almost. Deep in the jungles 
the tigress makes her lair, and the cubs 
have few enemies indeed. Bear or tiger- 
cat. when they inadvertently come across 
the lair trail of the great striped one. 
back-trail, and rapidly, too. It is doubt¬ 
ful if even the great python would disturb 
one of the little furry kittens. But the 
packs of wild dogs are without fear, and 
would kill and eat the cubs and defy the 
parent when she returned. Well she 
knows this, and also that, although she 
might slay a dozen, yet the others would 
pin her down, careless if they died or no. 
So a tiger in captivity will scrutinize a 
wolf without much show of anger, but 
pity the dog which ever comes within 
reach, and if she cannot get at him. her 
wrath of memory will vent itself in howls 
and fierce endeavors on the bars of her 
cage. 

A leopard, which lives so much among 
the trees and could so easily escape the at¬ 
tacks of wild dogs, has no instinctive 
hate, although a dog is a tidbit which 
would be by no means despised. This 
fact is well known to dogs, which show 
their fear of these arboreal felines, while 
they will mob tigers and other terrestrial 
cats. Pumas come under the same head 
as leopards, and are held in as great re¬ 
spect by dogs. 

PECULIAR ANTIPATHIES. 

In zoos the animals generally show a 
dislike to children and cripples: in the first 
instance, doubtless, because they are 
teased by the youngsters, and in the sec¬ 
ond place because of the strange horror 


and hate which many animals show of 
the abnormal or conditions out of the 
usual, for discriminating between which 
they have remarkable ability. 

Monkeys hate negroes, hut this dislike 
of dark-skinned men is not confined to the 
above-mentioned class of animals. It is 
said that when Mr. Hagenbeck's Somalis 
were at the Crystal Palace. London, they 
were invited one Sunday to see the zoo. 
There was nothing to which the most sen¬ 
sitive European could object to in the ap¬ 
pearance of these free, half-Arab tribes¬ 
men. but when the dark men entered the 
lion house there was an uproar. The ani¬ 
mals were furious: thev roared with rage. 
The apes and monkeys were frightened 
and angry, the antelopes were alarmed, 
and even the phlegmatic wild cattle were 
excited. They recognized their natural 
enemies, the dark-skinned men who had 
hunted them for centuries in the jungles 
and the bush, and with whom their own 
parents did battle when they were cap¬ 
tured and carried ofif captive in the Nu¬ 
bian deserts. 

Animals, such as cats. dogs, birds, and 
even bees, seem to know what persons 
are in sympathy with them. Some per¬ 
sons will he attacked even by pigeons 
and doves, and it is impossible for some 
to have anything to do with horses and 
other animals. 

ANIMALS THAT WILL NOT 
DRINK. 

Naturalists have discovered many ani¬ 
mals which seem to need no water or 
which drink only at rare intervals. There 
is a certain breed of gazelles which never 
drink, and the llamas of Patagonia live 
for years without taking water. There is 




530 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


a particular class of cattle near Losere, 
in France, that rarely touches water, but 
in spite of this fact these cattle give milk 
of a rich quality, from which excellent 
cheese is made. Many naturalists have 
the theory that hares do not drink or that 
water is not a necessity for them and that 


To some the hath is a pleasure, and to 
others mainly a duty; while there are 
many instances in which, though the crea¬ 
ture has no clothes to wash, the business 
of cleaning, drying and “ironing” the 
fur or feathers is a long and tiresome 
one, though never neglected. 



The pertified forests of America are regarded by geologists as one of the wonders of the 
worid. Our photograph shows a number of these giants in the great Arizonian petrified 
forest. It covers an area of nearly ioo square miles, and within its bounds trees which 
ages have turned into stone are scattered about in wild profusion. 


the dew on the grass is sufficient for their 
needs. 

ANIMALS THAT BATHE. 

Animals, many of them, are extremely 
particular as to bathing at frequent in¬ 
tervals. 


In countries under the equator, where 
the temperature and weather are almost 
uniform day by day, it is probable that 
the washing hour is almost as fixed as 
the drinking hours are. 

It is rather curious that birds are far 







REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


531 


more devoted to bathing than are beasts. 
From the falcon to the sparrow, birds 
delight in bathing; yet they have far 
more trouble to get their feathers dry 
than beasts have to dry their fur. 

Monkeys never wash or bathe, though 
they have, as a rule, every chance to do 
so. Possibly experience has taught them 
to be afraid of crocodiles, which are 
pretty generally distributed on monkey- 
haunted rivers. 

It is said, however, that a number of 
indian monkeys watched a party of 
Europeans in a boat, who washed their 
hands and brushed their teeth. Next day 
the monkeys were seen to travel to the 
riverside and go through the form of 
washing their hands and of brushing their 
teeth. 

Of the cat tribe, large and small, only 
the tiger and jaguar, and perhaps the 
little ‘‘fishing” cat bathe for pleasure. 
The tieer will sit with onlv its head out 

o » 

of the water on a blazing hot day in an 
Indian jungle. 

That the polar bear enjoys a bath per 
se as well as the use of the element for 
swimming and as a hunting ground no 
one can doubt. 

Though foxes are never seen to wash, 
and there is no record of the wolf doing 
so. nearly all dogs bathe, and some do 
so not onlv for coolness, but for cleanli¬ 
ness. 

Both the elephant and the rhinoceros 
take great delight in their daily ablutions. 

THE SWIMMING OF ANIMALS. 

Almost every one knows that a puppy 
or a kitten cast into water can swim with¬ 
out any previous experience. 

Almost all animals know how to swim 


without having to learn it. As soon as 
they fall into the water, or are driven 
into it. they instinctively make the proper 
motions, and not only manage to keep 
afloat, but propel themselves without 
trouble. 

Exceptions are the monkey, the camel, 
the giraffe, and the llama, which cannot 
swim without assistance. Camels and 
llamas have to be helped across water, and 
giraffes and monkeys drown if they enter 
it. Xow and then both of the latter spe¬ 
cies manage to cross waterways when 
they are driven to extremities, just as 
human beings occasionally can keep them¬ 
selves above water through sheer fright. 

A funny, though able, swimmer is the 
rabbit. He submerges his body, with 
the exception of head and tail. The 
latter sticks away up into the air, and 
his hind legs make “soapsuds” as he 
churns the water madly to get away. But 
with all his awkwardness he is a swift 
swimmer, and among the land animals is 
beaten only by the squirrel. The squirrel 
swims with his heavy tail sunk way down 
in the water, and his head held high. He 
cleaves the waves like a duck, and a man 
in a rowboat has all he can do to keep 
abreast of the swimming squirrel. 

One thing which none of the land-liv¬ 
ing animals does is to dive. Xo matter 
how hard pressed a swimming deer, rab¬ 
bit, squirrel, or other purely terrestrial 
animal may be. it will remain above water. 
But the muskrat, beaver, ice-bear, and 
otter dive immediately. 

THE POISONOUS PYTHON. 

The young of the poisonous species— 
deserted from the very first by the parent 
snakes—are as dangerous as if full grown 



532 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


from the moment they enter the world. 
The proprietor of a Philadelphia museum 
learned this to his cost not long ago. In 
a big glass case partitioned through the 
middle by a wire screen there lived side 
by side an eleven-foot anaconda (of the 
constrictor family) and a colony of cot¬ 
ton mouth moccasins. It was impossible 
for the moccasins to glide through the 
narrow meshes of the screen or even to 
venture an occasional “strike” at their 


mice and rats, with which we arc often 
too familiar when in a wild state, should 
have had friendly hands laid upon them, 
and that the caprice of the fancier should 
have completely altered their appearance. 
Scientific selection and mating has pro¬ 
duced black, chocolate, blue, white, cream, 
and tortoiseshell mice, and also most 
elaborately variegated and marked varie¬ 
ties of those colors. They are, in fact, so 
utterly unlike the ordinary house mice 



Regal python. “A creature in length the height of a two-story house; girth measure bigger 
than a large man’s thigh ; possessing within its tremendous frame the strength of twelve 
men; of a brown and purple colored skin; with a head as big as a wolf’s; eyes like rus¬ 
set shoe buttons; and a pair of jaws capable of swallowing a full-sized Newfoundland 
dog.” 


large and peaceful neighbor. But during 
the night a brood of young cotton mouths 
unexpectedly appeared, babies, not five 
inches long. They squirmed through the 
meshes of the partition, and before they 
had been two hours in this world, were 
gliding joyfully over the lifeless body of 
the huge constrictor who lay poisoned by 
the youngsters’ fangs. 

FANCY MICE AND RATS. 

No animal appears to be too small or 
too insignificant to be made a pet of. It 
is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 


that the latter, when they have the op¬ 
portunity, do their best to ill-treat and 
murder their cultured relatives. 

WALTZING MICE. 

But the fancy mouse, with his wonder¬ 
ful colors and markings, is a very ordi¬ 
nary creature compared with the Japanese 
\\ altzing Mice, which are procurable in 
this country. The contortions and gyra¬ 
tions of these small creatures are decid¬ 
edly unique. How they ever took it into 
their heads to progress by a series of re¬ 
volving motions is at present a mystery. 







REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


533 


Neither is it certain that they originated 
in Japan. The mice sometimes perform 
in pairs. This they do by waltzing head 
to tail, turning so quickly that it is diffi¬ 
cult to tell where one begins and the other 
ends. 

Waltzing mice are not quite so long 
as the common gray mouse, and much 
more slender. They are spotted black 
and white at each end of their bodies, and 
and clear white in the middle. They 
whirl around on their four feet as if on 
a pivot: sometimes stopping and revers¬ 
ing the direction. Frequently two or 
three of them go around together in a 
large circle. Although they waltz some¬ 
times as long as five minutes without 
rest, they appear never to get dizzy. They 
can, if they choose, run in a straight line, 
but they seldom do. Instead of running 
away when disturbed or frightened, they 
begin to waltz. They come out of their 
nests about sundown and waltz until 
nearly midnight. Then they go back to 
their nests to sleep. 

One of the curious things about them 
is their fighting. They waltz until they 
run into each other, when they bite, 
squeal, jump into the air—and then start 
waltzing again. They keep this up until 
they are seriously injured, sometimes 
having their tails and legs bitten off and 
their skins torn. 

There are several theories as to the 
reason they can whirl around in this way 
and yet not get dizzy. One is that it is 
because of a disease of the brain that they 
inherit. 

The faculty of waltzing seems to 
lie hereditary, for the young ones evince 
a tendency to spin as soon as they are old 
enough to leave the nest. These mice 


are usually very tame, and can be taken 
out of the cage and placed on the table, 
where they will go through their per¬ 
formance. They can lie recommended as 
most comical and inexpensive pets. 

In breeding fancy mice, shape and size, 
as well as color, are important. Large 
ears and eyes are required, also long muz¬ 
zles and tails, the latter free from all 
knots and irregularities. The colors in 
all the varieties must be rich and deep. 
The evenly-marked have clear and dis¬ 
tinct patches or spots along the body cor¬ 
responding on each side. There is a Na¬ 
tional Mouse Club, which looks after the 
interests of mouse fanciers, and a number 
of mouse shows are held during the year. 
Mouse culture can be carried on at slight 
expense, and in a very small space. 

Rats have not as yet been taken up by 
the fancier to such an extent as mice, 
though there are white rats, black and 
white, fawn and white, and brown and 
white; various other markings are said 
to be in process of construction. This 
should be easy, for rats are so hardy and 
so prolific that they could readily be bred 
in all the colors and shades of fancy 
mice. Destructive and fierce as are wild 
rats, those schoolboys and other people 
who keep white and piebald specimens, 
find them tame, harmless, and intelligent, 
readily learning all sorts of tricks. 

Fancy mice are no trouble to feed. 
Oats, canary, and other bird seed form the 
staple food, together with bread and milk 
when there are young ones. The best 
general food for tame rats is grain, such 
as wheat, barley and oats. A small pot 
of cold water should stand in the cage. 
Both mice and rats must be kept very 
clean or the cage will l)ecome offensive. 



534 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FLOWERS AND FLOWER-LIKE INSECTS AND ANIMALS 

THAT LIVE ON FLESH. 


Probably in some respects the most sur¬ 
prising results of late entomological ex¬ 
ploration is the discovery of semblances 
of orchidaceous flowers endowed with 
animal life and a voracious, carnivorous 
appetite, that seize and incontinently de¬ 
vour insect vegetarians which, allured by 
their form and color, incautiously alight 
upon them. 

These flower insects belong to the curi¬ 
ous family Manitidae, of which we have 
a well-known member of our southern 
states, Phasmomantis Carolina, commonly 
called “praying mantis/' 

The mantis is really a four-legged in¬ 
sect, for the fore limbs are so modified 
that they cannot under any circumstances 
be used in walking, and are no more prop¬ 
erly termed legs than would be the arms 
of men or the wings of birds. They are, 
in fact, the natural weapons of the insect, 
and are used for nothing else than fight¬ 
ing and for capturing prey. 

INSECT MASQUERADE. 

An insect discovered by Wood Mason 
masquerades sometimes as a pink and at 
others as a white orchid. The whole 
flower insect is either conspicuously white 
or of a resplendent pink color, and both' 
in color and form perfectly imitates a 
flower. The lower or apparently anterior 
petal of an orchidaceous blossom, the 
labellum, often of a very curious shape, 
is represented by the abdomen of the in¬ 
sect, while the parts which might be 
taken, regarding it as an insect, for its 
wings, are actually the femurs of the two 
pairs of posterior limbs, so greatly ex¬ 


panded, flattened and shaped in such man¬ 
ner as to represent the remaining petals 
of the flower. 

As the mantis rests, head downward, 
amid the stems and leaves of a plant, the 
forelegs drawn in so that they cannot be 
seen, the thighs of the two hind ones 
radiating out on each side, and the thorax 
and the abdomen raised at right angles 
to each other, the insect might easily at 
first sight deceive more discriminating 
entomologists than the honey suckers that 
settle upon it. 

An allied species, exactly resembling a 
pink orchid, is mentioned by Dr. Wal¬ 
lace, on the authority of Sir Charles Dilke, 
as inhabiting Java. Its specialty is al¬ 
luring and capturing butterflies. The ex¬ 
pected guest having arrived, the seeming 
feast spread out for his delectation arises 
and devours him. 

Professor S. Kurz, while at Pagu, in 
lower Burmah, saw what he supposed to 
be an orchid, of a species unfamiliar to 
him, but upon examination found it to 
be a mantis, of the genous gongylus. As 
is common with the habit of its kind 
when alighted upon a plant, it hung head 
downward, exposing the under surface to 
view, sometimes motionless and some¬ 
times swaying gently like a flower 
touched by gentle zephyrs. A bright vio¬ 
let-blue dilation of the thorax, in front of 
which its forelegs, banded violet and 
black, extended like petals, simulated the 
corolla of a papilionaceous flower so per¬ 
fectly as to deceive the eyes of a practiced 
botanist. 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


535 


ANIMAL DECEPTIONS. 

Brazillian birds, fly catchers, display a 
brilliantly colored crest easily mistaken 
for a flower cup. Insects, attracted by 
what appears to be a freshly opened blos¬ 
som. furnish the birds with food. An 
Asiatic lizard is entirely colored like the 


surface of the desert plains where it lives, 
except at each angle of the mouth blooms 
a brilliant red folding of the flesh, exactly 
resembling a little flower that grows in 
the sand. Insects lured by the seeming- 
flower are incontinently disillusioned 
when they settle upon it. 


IMPROVING UPON NATURE FOR THE BENEFIT AND 

PLEASURE OF MAN. 


Luther Burbank, who owns an ex¬ 
tensive estate near Santa Rosa, has grown 
plums and prunes without stones, pure 
white “blackberries" and daises four 
inches across. 

The whole thing is more or less a 
family affair—a marriage between differ¬ 
ent individuals in the world of fruit and 
flowers. The so-called plumcot is a re¬ 
sult of a happy union between father apri¬ 
cot and mother plum. Those who know 
the delicious apricot and plum need not 
be told how much the two look alike, 
but how differently they taste. The plum- 
cot is, therefore, a distinctive fruit—“as 
distinct,'’ says its creator, “as if a new 
fruit had been handed down from another 
planet.” It has the form of an apricot 
and the same outside appearance, but is 
more highly colored than a plum or an 
apricot, with a soft skin and a shadowy 
bloom. It possesses a delicious flavor. 

In the gardens near Santa Rosa there 
are today growing many of these plum- 
cots. with varying degrees of plum and 
apricot flavor blended. 

In turning out the white blackberry Mr. 
Burbank is said to have applied the Dar¬ 
winian hypothesis inversely. He kept on 
selecting berries which in ripening did not 
become pure black, and finally obtained a 


bush in which the fruit changed from the 
green immaturity to pure white. This 
involved the examination of twenty-five 
thousand bushes several times in several 
years. 

His Shasta daisy, which was first ex¬ 
hibited in the window of a San Francisco 
florist, and attracted attention from 
crowds of persons, is a combination of 
the free flowering American daisy with 
European and Japanese species, and is 
the result of eight years’ work in hy¬ 
bridization. The merit of this flower 
which will particularly appeal to those of 
a gardening hobby is its hardiness. It 
grows and blooms wherever the oak lives, 
it is perennial and has a large blossom of 
a dazzling whiteness, borne on a long, 
stiff stem that makes the flower valuable 
for cutting. As each bloom may attain 
a diameter of four inches the effect pro¬ 
duced by thousands may be easily 
imagined. 

AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS. 

This making of new flowers, vegetables 
and fruits is an important business. 
Thirty thousand dollars was paid some 
years ago for a new carnation, and the 
value of some of the new hybrid fruits 
is, of course, higher, from the standpoint 
of utility. 



536 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Of late years much of the best work 
m fruit and vegetables in this country 
has been done by the Bureau of Plant 
Industry in the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture at Washington, the laboratory of 
plant breeding under the charge of Doctor 
Herbert J. Webber having produced many 
novelties. 

Among the successes may be men¬ 
tioned a cross between the tangerine and 
the ordinary grape fruit. This offspring 
is about the size of an ordinary orange, 
has a skin that can easily be removed and 
flesh that falls apart as readily as that of 
the tangerine, with a modified flavor of 
the grape fruit. To this new variety the 
experimenters have given the name “tan- 
gelo,” from ‘‘tangerine” and “pomello,” 
the latter being the true name of the 
grape fruit. 

Another success is a new orange which 
grows in a northern climate, yet pos¬ 
sesses a palatable flavor. The bureau has 
grown pineapples with thornless leaves, 
and a cherry tree on which fifty or sixty 
cherries can be grown in a bunch. The 
seedless grape, obtained from the muscat 
of Alexandria, is the bureau's handiwork, 
and was the result of the selection year 
after year of cuttings from vines which 
produced less than the normal number of 
seeds. 

FLOWERS THAT TELL THE TIME. 

There are flowers that act as timekeep¬ 
ers for those who have by observation 
studied their ways and habits, and so 
punctual are they that laboring men in 
some countries tell from them when the 
hour for dinner and leaving work has 


come; while in certain districts the school 
children are said to be dismissed when 
the goat’s-beard closes, which it does 
punctually at the same time every day. 
The gardener to a millionaire has pro¬ 
vided a flower-clock in the shape of a cir¬ 
cular flower-bed, with twelve divisions. 
Each of the divisions, from one to twelve, 
contains flowers which open or close at 
the corresponding hour. Thus the two 
space is occupied by a IP, made of hawk- 
seed, which closes at 2 p. m. precisely, 
and so on. He had no difficulty in find¬ 
ing flowers to suit the several hours, and 
in some cases the figure has been made 
of more than one flower. Amongst the 
flowers used are the snow thistle, blue 
chicory, pimpernel, marigold, Star of 
Bethlehem, and evening primrose. The 
Yellowstone Park contains the most 
unique greenhouse for flower cultivation 
in the world, the heat being obtained from 
one of the natural hot springs, or gey¬ 
sers, the water of which issues from the 
earth at a temperature near boiling point. 
The shortest-lived flowers are the dew- 
flowers of the Death \ r alley in California. 
Heavy dews are wafted by the winds 
from the mountains over the parched 
plain, and an hour or two before sunrise 
the moist sand, with its under-current of 
warmth, gives life to the dew-flower. 
When the light begins to glow in the 
east, myriads of tiny pink flowers burst 
into bloom, hugging the sand for the few 
minutes they are destined to live. The 
sun’s rays come slanting across the sur¬ 
face, and, as though a touch of fire had 
passed over them, the dew-flowers wither 
and disappear. 






REMARKABLE EVOLUTIOXS IN NATL'RE 


537 


STRANGE FACTS ABOUT FISH. 


Fishes have certain means of demon¬ 
strating their emotions, such as erecting 
their scales or hn rays when under the in¬ 
fluence of anger or terror, as feathers or 
hairs are erected in birds and mammals. 
As fishes have eyes without movable eye¬ 
lids. cheeks incased with bony plates or 
covered with hard scales, which are 
scarcely suitable for smiling, while ex¬ 
ternal ears are wanting, one can hardly 
expect to find special expressions, as of 
joy, pain, astonishment, etc., so well 
marked as in some of the higher grades 
of animals, in which the play of the fea¬ 
tures often affords an insight into their 
internal emotions. 

Change of color is one of the best in¬ 
dexes to the emotions. When the fish is 
sick its color is apt to be faint, while when 
in health, angry or breeding the colors 
stand out brightly and vividly. One of 
the best examples of the effect of the emo¬ 
tions on color is that of the stickleback. 
This species has a violent temper, and ap¬ 
pears to be always carrying an imaginary 
chip on its shoulder. During the breed- 
insr season combats between the males 

o 

are exceedingly common. \\ hen fighting 
their brilliant colors stand out vividly, 
but after the combat is over the defeated 
one. his gay colors faded, hides his dis¬ 
grace among his more peaceable com¬ 
panions. Even then he is not left in 
peace, as the victor seems to take a de¬ 
light in persecuting him in many ways. 

FISH THAT FIGHT. 

The parrot fishes are also noted for 
their “scrappy” proclivities, and the same 


color changes are noted in them as in the 
sticklebacks. 

Fishes, again, are charged with being 
voiceless, but nothing could be further 
from the truth, as more than three hun¬ 
dred species are known to produce sound. 

The Scitenidte are probably the best ex¬ 
amples of the falsity of the above charge. 
These fishes, which are called “maigres,” 
emit sounds having a mean of about 
twenty-five seconds, and also various 
notes, usually degenerating into a hum¬ 
ming sound, either from excess or want 
of intensity. When traveling in schools, 
these sounds may be heard from a depth 
of twenty fathoms. It has been suggested 
that the story of the songs of the fabled 
sirens had its origin in the utterances of 
schools of these fishes. 

When captured the scad, or horse 
mackerel, the globefish, the grunt, the pig- 
fish, and the hogfish make sounds re¬ 
sembling the grunting of a pig. while one 
of the best known of the fishes along the 
South Atlantic seaboard, the croaker, gets 
its name from the croak it gives when 
taken into the boat. The barbel and carp 
also croak when taken out of the water. 

A species of Tetrodon is called “sea- 
frog” by the natives of Malabar, India, 
on account of the noise it makes when cap¬ 
tured. The red gurnard has earned the 
name of “seacock" from the crowing 
noise which it makes, while another spe¬ 
cies is called the “piper" for the same rea¬ 
son. 

A siluroid found in the Rio Parana, and 
called the armado, is remarkable for a 
harsh grating noise which it emits when 



538 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


caught with hook and line, and this can be 
distinctly heard while it is still beneath the 
surface. The Corvina nigra, a fish in the 
Tagus, emits sounds resembling the vi¬ 
brations of a deep-toned bell, gong or 
pedal pipe of an organ. Sea herrings, 
when the net has been drawn over them, 
have been observed to do the same, 
also the fresh water bullhead of our 
waters. According to Francis Day, he 
obtained several sheat fishes, Macrones 
vittatus, locally termed “fiddler fish, at 
Madras, India, and “on touching one 
which was lying on some wet grass, it 
erected its armed spines, emitting a sound 
resembling the buzzing of a bee, and ap¬ 
parently in anger or fear." 

An amphibious siluroid fish, Clarias 
macracanthus, on being taken into the 
hand, is said to squeal and shriek. Cer¬ 
tain of the blennies also make a noise 
similar to this. The big Jewfish of the 
Gulf of Mexico will often break the still¬ 
ness of the night with his “Boom! 
Boom!” delivered monotonously for a 
considerable time. 

EXPLANATION OF A CURIOUS 
LEGEND. 

The legend of Pascagoula river and its 
mysterious music, deemed supernatural by 
the Indians and the early whites who 
heard it, has since been explained as the 
noise made by sea drums. In speaking 
of this still current legend a recent writer 
says: “It may often be heard there on 
summer evenings. 1 he listener being on 
the beach, or, yet more favorably, in a 
boat floating on the river, a low, plaintive 
sound is heard rising and falling like that 
of an ceolian harp, and seeming to issue 
from the water. The sounds, which are 


sweet and plaintive, but monotonous, 
cease as soon as there is any noise or dis¬ 
turbance of the water." 

In the days of old Rome the mursenas, 
or sea eels, were supposed to have a regu¬ 
lar language, “low and sweet,” says an 
ancient writer, “and with an intonation 
so fascinating that few could resist its in¬ 
fluence,” and it is also said that the Em¬ 
peror Augustus even pretended to under¬ 
stand their words. 

When Humboldt visited the South Seas 
in 1803, about 7 p. m. on February 20 an 
extraordinary noise startled the crew. At 
first it was like the beating of many drums 
in the distance, and then the sounds 
seemed to come from the ship itself, near 
the poop. At first the terrified crew 
thought that breakers were at hand, and 
then that the vessel had sprung a leak; 
but it was soon discovered that the sounds 
were produced by fishes. 

Lieutenant White, U. S. N., in the 
narrative of his voyage to the China Seas 
in 1824, mentions a similar experience. 
At the mouth of a river in Cambodia the 
ship’s company was alarmed by remark¬ 
able noises around the bottom of the ves¬ 
sel. “The sounds,” he says, “were like 
a mixture of the bass of the organ, the 
ringing of bells, the guttural notes of a 
great frog, and tones which the imagina¬ 
tion might attribute to an enormous harp. 
The ship seemed actually to tremble with 
the vibration. Steadily the noises in¬ 
creased until they formed a chorus around 
the entire vessel." Subsequently, as the 
ship sailed on, they diminished, and 
finally ceased. A native interpreter stated 
that they were made by a kind of fish 
which clung to objects with its mouth. 



REMARKABLE El’OLUTIONS IN NATURE 


532 


MUSICAL FISH. 

Sir J. Emerson Tennent tells of a visit 
he made to Ceylon in 1848, when he went 
in a boat to hear some famous water 
music at Batticalva. He was rowed 
quietly to the spot by moonlight, where 
the sounds came up from the water like 
the gentle thrills of a musical chord or 
the faint vibrations of a wineglass when 
the rim is rubbed with a moistened finger. 
It was not one sustained note, but a mul¬ 
titude of tiny sounds, the sweetest treble 
mingled with the lowest bass. The na¬ 
tives said that the music was made by a 
shellfish at the bottom, which they called 
the “crying shell." 

Fishes are supposed to make these 
noises for the purpose of attracting theii 
mates. It is said that fishermen often 
take fish during the spawning season by- 
imitating the sounds. 

Formerlv it was believed that fishes 
could not hear, as they had no ears, but 
anatomists have proved that they ha\ e 
organs of hearing, though not external 
ones. As water is denser than air the 
sounds made in the latter do not penetiate 
the former readily, and. unless they are 
sufficiently loud to produce well defined 
mechanical vibrations in the water, are 
not apt to be heard by fishes unless they 
should happen to be close to the surface. 
It is very probable that most of the fishes 
cannot distinguish and appreciate differ¬ 
ences of tone, as the higher animals are 
enabled to do. There are numerous well 
authenticated instances of fishes respond¬ 
ing to noises in the air, which would seem 
to indicate that certain species have their 
hearing much better developed than 
others. 


FISH THAT DANCE. 

Many ancient writers have described 
the fishes' love of music, and Rondolet, 
the famous naturalist, tells how on one 
occasion he made a school of shad dance 
to his fiddling. 

It is said that in Germany Clupea finta 
delights in musical sounds. Therefore, 
when fishing the fishermen fasten to the 
nets bows of wood, to which are sus¬ 
pended a number of small bells, which 
chime in harmony together on the nets 
being moved. The fish are thought to be 
thus attracted to their destruction, and as 
long as the alluring sounds continue they 
cease all efforts to escape. The same 
method is followed on the Danube River 
when fishing for certain species. 

The legend that they were caught in 
Egypt by singing to them is not without 
its plausibility. In Japan the tame fish 
are summoned to dinner by melodious 
gongs, while on the Dholpore River, in 
India, they are called up out of the muddy 
depths by the ringing of a handbell. In 
Europe it is common for carp and gold¬ 
fish in private ponds to respond to the 
whistle of the person who feeds them, no 
matter at what time he calls. In Tahiti 
the native chiefs have pet eels, which 
come to the surface when their master 
whistles, while they pay no attention to 
the calls of strangers. 

In Sweden, at the present time, the 
church bells are not rung during the 
bream season, lest the fish should take 
flight and desert the region, while during 
the pilchard fishery the people are no less 
careful of their sensitiveness to sound. 

The natives of the Gold Coast Colony, 
West Africa, when fishing on the inland 
waters or rivers on moonlight nights, 



540 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


make use of a piece of glass—broken bot¬ 
tle generally—and metal, thereby making 
a musical tinkle to attract the fish before 
the hand-net is cast. 

TASTE AND SMELL IN FISHES. 

The sense of taste is evidently not well 
developed in fishes, and this is very evi¬ 
dent from the circumstances under which 
fishes seize and swallow their prey. Those 
species which are carnivorous are of ne¬ 
cessity compelled to catch with their 
mouths and retain a firm hold of the active 
and slippery food they are destined to 
devour; to divide or masticate their food 
would be impracticable and even were 


they permitted to do so the water which 
perpetually washes over the exterior of 
their mouths obviously precludes the pos¬ 
sibility of appreciating savors. 

As the olfactory nerves are of large size 
and cover a wide surface, the sense of 
smell in fishes is acute, and this is evident 
from the selection they make in their 
food. Fishermen know well that tainted 
bait is not so tempting as fresh bait; a 
very hungry fish will not be particular, 
but the odor of stinking bait is repugnant 
to fishes generally. Fishes are also at¬ 
tracted by agreeable scents, as was first 
proved by Aristotle. 


FREAKS OF THE EQUATORIAL JUNGLES. 


A toad is about the last thing in the 
world that one would expect to find musi¬ 
cal, but in the Caribbean Islands a toad 
that whistles is common in the mountains. 
Woe be to the luckless person, however, 
who tries to sleep in the immediate vicin¬ 
ity of a whistling toad. Her musical 
efforts are very tolerable when heard at 
a distance, but when Mrs. Toad perches 
on the top of a tree-fern close by your 
bedroom window and whistles an epic in 
two hundred stanzas, the only chance of 
obtaining sleep is to put your head under 
the mattress. The tree toad's whistle 
smites the eardrum like concentrated 
thunder. 

Another “musical” denizen of the jun¬ 
gle is a modest insect that spends half of 
its lifetime trying to extricate its feet. 
This peculiar insect is known to the na¬ 
tives as “the drummer” and has an un¬ 
accountable provision of Nature attached 
to its feet in the shape of little suction 
cups. 


They say there is use for everything 
provided by generous Dame Nature, but 
if you saw that poor “drummer” insect 
crawling up a window pane, pulling its 
sticky feet after it, you would shed co¬ 
pious tears of sympathy—or laughter. 
Every foot it places sticks and the feet 
it uses to strengthen its pull become fast 
also. Only its two front legs are devoid 
of the mysterious suction cups, and when 
occasionally all its legs get stuck the poor 
bug batters the surface upon which it has 
become fastened with such violence that 
the sound produced is exactly like the 
beating of a distant kettle drum. 

One marvels what Nature had in mind 
for that bug, also for another that swarms 
through the bungalow in the month of 
May. This one spends three-fourths of 
its time trying to get on its feet. It is a 
fat, unwieldly insect which the natives call 
the “May bug,” although it might well 
be called the “bibulous bug.” Every 
time it alights it tumbles over on its back 






REMARKABLE FA'OLUTIOXS IX XATURE 


541 


and. being rather corpulent and n»> police¬ 
man being handy, it experiences consid¬ 
erable difficulty in getting right side up 
again. 

Another seemingly unfortunate crea¬ 
tion is the “blind bug.” The mystery of 
this unfortunate creature's existence is 
that it toils all day long pushing a piece 
of clay or a stone from place to place 


without rhyme or reason. In the long 
jungle afternoons I have watched this 
blind bug at work, pushing and pushing 
and pushing a stone that was ten times 
its own weight. In the course of an hour 
it would move that stone about fifteen 
yards, when the bug would suddenly leave 
off and begin to push another stone in 
an entirely opposite direction. 


SOME CURIOUS CAPRICES OF ANIMALS. 


Catnip, or cat-mint—which is the cor¬ 
rect name of the plant—is so termed from 
its curious effect upon the cat tribe. The 
average domestic cat prefers a few drops 
of catnip essence to a saucer of cream. 
The creature will lie down and roll in 
ecstacy on a rug sprinkled with the scent. 
Valerian, made from the Valeriana offici¬ 
nalis. a plant common in English hedge¬ 
rows. has a similar and even more pow¬ 
erful effect. 

The fact is well known to stealers of 
valuable cats. They are careful to keep 
about them a supply of valerian tincture. 
A cat well provided with this pet delicacy 
will even forget its home and become 
quite content among strange sur¬ 
roundings. 

All the cat family, even lions and tigers, 
seem to share this strange partiality for 
certain scents. A lion that is, or was, 
in Mr. Hagenbeck’s collection, delighted 
in nothing more than lavender water. At 
other times a troublesome and treacherous 
creature, it was perfectly contented when 
a handkerchief soaked in lavender was 
o-iven to it. It would sniff it and even- 

o 

tuallv tear it to pieces, purring all the 
time. This taste was made use of when 


its keeper wished for any reason to enter 
its cage. 

Dogs, on the other hand, and all their 
tribe, detest the scents dear to the cats. 
A drop of lavender water, or any of the 
scents made with alcohol, placed on a 
dog's nose, drives the creature almost 
frantic. They have, however, their own 
preferences, as dog-stealers are well 
aware. Oil of aniseed, made from the 
anise plant, is perhaps the most peculiar. 
By rubbing some of this on his clothes, a 
professional dog-stealer will entice almost 
any dog to follow him. 

Xo creature in a state of nature is 
likely to acquire a taste for intoxicants. 
Yet that many creatures possess such a 
taste is beyond doubt. Foremost amongst 
these are monkeys. So much is this the 
case that an intoxicating drink made from 
the fermented juice of rice is almost in¬ 
variably used for catching these creatures. 
Carrying a gourd of this intoxicant, the 
trapper takes a little sip before the eyes 
of the monkeys, and then, dropping the 
gourd, goes on his way. At once there 
is a rush for the liquor, and when, an 
hour or two later, the man returns he 
finds the glade strewn with monkeys, all 
in the last stage of intoxication. 






542 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Nor are monkeys the only animals 
which are fond of spirituous liquors. 
Elephants will drink brandy by the bot¬ 
tleful. Bears are notorious tipplers. 
Many performing bears find their highest 
reward in honey and beer or rum-and- 
water mixed with sugar. 


Even birds share this peculiar taste. 
Geese are the worst of feathered topers. 
Geese will eat a whole bed of lettuce if 
they can get at it, and, affected probably 
by the narcotic properties of the plant, 
then fall into a state of coma, which may 
last twelve or fifteen hours. 


A LOTHARIO AMONG BIRDS. 


Since the time when Jenner first had 
the good luck of witnessing the curious 
scene in which the young cuckoo ejects its 
foster brothers and sisters from the nest, 
this bird has always excited a great deal 
of curiosity. In the female cuckoo the 
nesting sense appears to be atrophied. 
“She does not think,” says a writer, “of 
making a nest, though that the instinct 
has not died out of the breed is evident 
from the fact that at least one of the 
species builds a nest like 'other birds. 
But in England the female cuckoo lays 
her egg at the hedge root, and afterward 
carries it in her bill and deposits it in 
the nest of some other bird. Probably 
connected with the dwindling of the ma¬ 
ternal instinct is the fact that in the 
cuckoo the males far outnumber the 
females. It is generally reckoned as a 
sign of decay either in a nation or in a 
species of birds when this occurs. As 
long as a country, for instance, produces 
more females than males it remains 
strong, healthy and aggressive; but when 
this ceases to be the case and the males 
outnumber the females, decay sets in. 
Thus the cuckoo must be described as the 
decadent among birds, and, in spite of 
all the poetry written about him, not a 
very pleasant creature either. We wel¬ 
come him in spring, not as we welcome 


the nightingale for the sweetness of his 
note, but because he is the harbinger of 
spring and all that is meant by it. 

A CONSCIENCELESS MALE. 

“As is natural the male bird displays 
no parental instinct at all. He courts his 
mistress and then forgets all about her. 
Far from sitting on the egg, as many 
male birds do—notably the ringdove, 
which spends as much time on the eggs 
as the female—he never sees the egg 
which is laid. The mother has just about 
as little regard for it. Her care lasts no 
longer than the moment at which she 
drops it into another nest, and investiga¬ 
tion has shown that she is not very par¬ 
ticular even about that. It used to be 
held by naturalists that the cuckoo always 
chose to put her egg beside others which 
were similarly tinted. But this is not so, 
as might be proved from the single fact 
that the hedgesparrow’s nest is one which 
she greatly patronizes, and here the eggs 
are sky-blue in color and no cuckoo ever 
laid an egg like them. Besides, there 
is scarcely one of our common wild birds 
whose nest has not been made the recep¬ 
tacle of a cuckoo's egg, and the coloration 
would indeed have to vary if it was to 
be suitable in each instance. 

“But it is on hatching that the hideous 





Iona Cathedral. Site of the beginning of both Christianity and the Monarchy of Scotland. The smaller ivy grown walls are among the 

oldest in Scotland, their authentic record being far back into the early centuries. 















544 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tragedy takes place for which the bird 
has earned an evil fame. Self-preserva¬ 
tion, it has been said, is the first law of 
nature, and, as a matter of fact, the only 
thing that can he predicted of life in its 
simplest form is that it strives to keep 
itself in being. But in no other creature 


does this instinct take a form so abhor¬ 
rent as it does in the young cuckoo, which, 
while it is a blind, shapeless, naked little 
monster, begins to elbow its companions 
out of the nest and cast them to the 
ground, where death is certain and almost 
immediate.” 


GOVERNMENT OPINIONS OF THE TOAD 
AND THE QUAIL. 


REMARKABLE INVESTIGATIONS 
BY THE AGRICULTURAL 
DEPARTMENT. 

Uncle Sam has taken up the toad. He 
has also taken up the quail, but it is his 
appreciation, long delayed, of the com¬ 
mon or garden hoppy that makes the heart 
well with joy. 

Just the common or garden toad—the 
little follow with the long red tongue and 
the sleepy eye—Uncle Sam says his use¬ 
fulness to the farmer, amateur or other¬ 
wise, is in direct ratio to his ugliness. 

THE TOAD. 

The toad, he says, in a book issued by 
the Department of Agriculture, has al¬ 
ways borne the burden of false and even 
ludicrous misrepresentations. We have 
taken too much for granted, as, for in¬ 
stance, that it has venomous qualities; 
that it has medicinal virtues; that it 
carries a jewel in its head—even the 
Bard of Avon told us this—that it can 
produce warts; that it can poison infants 
by its breath; that it will bring good 
fortune to the house in whose new made 
cellar it takes up its abode; that it will 
cause bloody milk in cows if killed by 
design or even by accident; that it will 
cause rain if stepped upon. 


Alas, alas! all these assertions are fig¬ 
ments of diseased or superstitious brains. 

Believe them not, says Uncle Sam. 

Having polished up the reputation of 
the toad Uncle Sam passes on to its family 
life. He speaks poetically of the song of 
the male as it wooes its mate—that soft, 
drowsy, musical trilling which Gibson 
calls “the sweetest sound in nature,” but 
which the country boarder calls things 
that are not really fit to print. 

He tells touchingly of the perils that 
envelop their early years—perils from fish 
and bird and sun and air and water. 

But he finds that in toadland there is 
no croak for race suicide. President 
Roosevelt will he pleased to learn that 
every conscientious female toad will 
bring into the world something like 9.000 
little ones in the course of one gestation. 

When the toad wants a new suit he 
does as does his brother, the snake, who 
casts off the old. He is a frugal beast, 
for he eats his old clothes. 

Examination shows that at least 98 
per cent of the toad’s food is of animal 
origin. 

WORMS. 

The common angleworm was present in 
fourteen stomachs, principally in toads 
taken after showers, and formed 1 per 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


545 


cent of the total food. Rains drive the 
worms to the surface, where they fall easy 
victims to a particularly hungry toad. 
From the study of toads in confinement 
it appears that worms are not preferred 
by that animal as an article of diet, but 
may be eaten. 

Worms are of great service in tilling 
and aerating the soil, as Darwin has so 
well shown. On the other hand, they of¬ 
ten cause great annoyance in greenhouses 
and in flower beds out of doors. Since 
the toad frequents the abodes of man, it 
seems probable that the good done by 
worms in such localities may well be off¬ 
set by their damage as above mentioned. 

Snails are a serious pest in greenhouses 
and gardens, where their depredations on 
lettuce and other succulent plants are 
well known. Several of tlie large naked 
snails common in gardens were found in. 
the stomachs, while, in the case of the 
shell-bearing snails, it was found that the 
acid stomach juices of the toad were suf¬ 
ficient to dissolve the shell in a short 
time. 

Sunbugs, which damage the roots of 
orchids, violets, pansies, roses, etc., were 
found. Here the toad rendered a great 
service. 

Thousand-leggers, the bane of potatoes 
and truck vegetation, were welcome al¬ 
ways inside the toad. Spiders were a de¬ 
sirable and plentiful entree. 

GRASSHOPPERS. 

Grasshoppers and crickets fell before 
him, but. alas, so did the ant. This is 
debatable ground, and as the owners of 
the stomachs had gone to toadland’s happy 
hunting ground let us speak no evil of 
them. 


Beetles went to make up 8 per cent of 
the total food of the reptile; cutworms and 
army worms, 28 per cent; tent caterpil¬ 
lars, between 9 and 10, and miscellaneous 
ones, all harmful, formed 3 per cent. 

Some of the stomachs belonged to 
toads which had been having a moth feast 
under some electric lights. 

The lamps have a strong attraction 
for the moths, and the toads make sure 
that few if any escape. This imported 
European pest has now become well 
established in several Xew England 
states, particularly in residential districts. 
It is here that the toad is most valuable 
as a destroyer. 

THE QUAIL. 

Now as to the quail, Uncle Sam has 
found that it also is a great destroyer of 
the noxious worm and bug. 

In the investigation 651 stomachs were 
examined, collected in every month of the 
year, though mostly during the hunting 
season, and obtained from twenty-one dif¬ 
ferent states, and from Canada and the 
District of Columbia, but chieflv from 
New York, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, 
Nebraska, Kansas and Texas. 

As indicated by this material, the bob- 
white is notable for the great variety of 
its food. It lives mainly on seeds, fruits, 
leaves, buds, insects and spiders, though 
myriapods, crustaceans, mollusks and 
even batrachians have also been found in 
its stomach. The character of the diet 
varies with the season. The greatest pro¬ 
portion of animal matter is taken in late 
spring and early summer. 

The food for the year as a whole, esti¬ 
mated from the analysis of the contents 



546 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


of stomachs, and calculated by volume, is 
divided thus: Animal matter, 1493 per 
cent; vegetable matter, S5.07 per cent. 
The elements of the animal food are dis¬ 
tributed as follows: Beetles, 6.38 per cent 
of the total food; grasshoppers, 2.56 per 
cent; bugs, 2.83 per cent; caterpillars, 
0.87 per cent ; miscellaneous insects, 0.48 

MEN AND 

A COMPARISON OF STRENGTH IN 
A GREAT ANIMAL SHOW AT 
MADISON SQUARE GAR¬ 
DEN, NEW YORK CITY. 

An eighty foot cable was attached and 
100 of the strongest men in the circus 
commenced to tug and haul. In spite of 
the combined strength, however, only 

6.700 pounds was registered, or a paltry 
67 pounds per man. Everyone was disap¬ 
pointed, especially the men themselves, 
who declared that they were not yet 
“warmed up to the job,” and hoped they 
would be allowed another trial after the 
animals had had a pull. This request 
was granted. 

Then a couple of draught-horses were 
attached, and after pulling until their 
veins stood out like cords registered 

2.700 pounds. At the request of the 
writer the length of the hawser was re¬ 
duced to 10 feet and the horses given an¬ 
other chance, with the result that they 
managed to send the indicator to the 3.750 
pound mark. Six horses on the long rope 
registered a pull of 5.750 pounds, but 
when brought close to the machine sent 
the indicator up to 8,875 pounds. 

A couple of camels that had been in 
harness a few times only were next led in 
and, in spite of much protest, attached to 


per cent; other invertebrates, largely 
spiders, 1.81 per cent. 

The vegetable food consists 01 grain, 
23.64 per cent of the total food; various 
seeds, chiefly those of weeds, 50.78 per 
cent; fruit, 8.53 per cent; miscellaneous 
vegetable matter, 2.12 per cent. 

BEASTS. 

the hawser. But camels are not great 
pullers, and the very best they could do 
was 2,750 pounds. When the camels had 
neen taken back to their stalls a couple 
of gentle zebus, or sacred cows of India, 
were led into the ring, yoked together, 
and attached to the hawser. The pretty 
creatures started off as though determined 
to show the spectators what real strength 
was, but as soon as the strain came they 
slackened, and in the end succeeded in 
registering—nothing, for the lowest 
mark on the register was 250 pounds, 
and even the combined strength of the 
two sacred animals was not equal to such 
a pull. 

The 100 men now indicated that they 
were sufficiently warmed up for another 
pull, and one of the spectators, who had 
been in the navy and therefore knew all 
about “tugs-of-war,” offered to place the 
men in those positions best suited to 
bring out the greatest amount of strength. 
As a result the original pull of 6,700 
pounds was increased to 12,000 pounds 
and held for a matter of 40 seconds. 
With this record the men were contented 
to make way for “Babe,” the sweetest- 
tempered and wisest elephant in the circus. 
She is, however. Babe in name only, for 
she scales close onto six tons, and takes 




REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


5-17 


pleasure in pushing heavy freight into 
the cars when the show is on the move. 
As it was not intended that Babe 


could rest her head. The rope from the 
register was then attached to the axle od 
the wagon and Babe invited to “shove.” 



Differences in horsepower on average dirt roads and on a smooth track. 


should show her strength by pulling only, 
that being secondary to her powers of 
pushing, a huge wagon was rolled into 
the arena, attached to the back of which 
was a nice soft pad against which she 


She had no objection and started right 
away, sending the indicator up with a 
bound to 4,500 pounds. Then, as the 
wagon refused to budge. Babe became an¬ 
noyed. She had pushed many a vehicle 






































































































































548 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


before, but never had she tackled so ob¬ 
stinate a one as this. Exerting all her 
strength and squealing with indignation, 
she “went for” that wagon, broke the 
hawser, and gave the ponderous cart such 
a jolt that one wheel flew off, while part 
of the back caved in. After it had been 
repaired a crowd of circus men jumped 
in and Babe had another try, increasing 
the former push by 500 pounds. After 
that she was joined by another elephant, 
when the two together succeeded in reg¬ 
istering 6,500 pounds. 

Then it was decided to see what Babe 
could do as a draught animal. A collar 
was fixed to her, which called forth some 
indignant trumpeting and an attempt to 
rip it off by means of her trunk. But 
Whiting Allen, her much-loved keeper, 
soothed her with a few words, and as 
soon as the rope was attached started her 
on her pulling contest. With a slow but 
sure strain she succeeded in making the 
magnificent record of 8,700 pounds, or 
a fraction less than the combined pull of 
six horses. The result was received with 
many cheers and much surprise, for it 
had always been supposed that an ele¬ 
phant’s push was superior to its pull. 
Babe's performance being the last on the 
programme, no further tests were made 
that day, though it was decided at some 
future date to record the strength of 
other animals in the circus. The results 
of these interesting tests proved without 
a doubt that in proportion to his size 
man’s pull is superior to that of animals, 
so that his right to be regarded as the 
“lord of creation” is justified. 

STRENGTH OF INSECTS. 

The wing strength of insects is known 
because of the work of Felix Plateau and 


De Lucy, who showed that these little 
creatures could not raise a weight much 
heavier than themselves, no matter what 
the surface of their wings. During the 
course of these experiments a very inter¬ 
esting fact was discovered, namely, that 
the size of the wing decreases as the 
weight and size of the animal increases, 
a fact which explains the slow, heavy 
flight of the beetle and the swift, light 
movement of the gnat. 

The case is entirely different, however, 
where the creature moves on a solid sur¬ 
face where its six feet may obtain points 
of support. In this case we can approxi¬ 
mately calculate the force exercised. 
Take, for example, a fly by the wings, 
leaving the legs free so that they may 
seize and raise a match, as shown in fig¬ 
ure two. If a man wished to perform 
relatively equal labor he would have to 
raise a beam 243/2 feet long by 14F2 inches 
square. The earwig, harnessed to a 
small chariot, drags without difficulty 
eight matches which for a large per- 
cheron horse would mean dragging 330 
beams as long and thick as himself. 
The man who leaps the 300 metres of the 
Eiffel tower is merely repeating the ac¬ 
tion of the flea, which can leap 200 times 
its own height. It would require a 
Hercules able to raise eighty large loco¬ 
motives to equal the relative strength 
of an oyster, which in closing its valves 
exercises a force of fifteen kilograms. 
Thus it is a much more simple thing to 
calculate the strength of insects than to 
equal it, and our modern athletes have 
yet a long road to travel before they can 
compete with animals occupying very 
humble positions in the living world. 




REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


549 


THE LIFE HISTORY OF A SPLASH. 


These photographs were not obtained 
by the ordinary Cinematograph process 
(which would be too slow), but by a re¬ 
finement upon it. For each picture the 
ball was allowed to fall into the fluid, only 
the exposure was delayed each successive 
time by an increasing fraction of a sec¬ 
ond. The total result is a complete record 
of a single splash. The exposures were 
made by the light of an electric spark 
lasting between ten and seventeen ten- 
millionths of a second. The timing is 
under perfect control. By the use* of a 
specially designed chronograph, the ball 
may be photographed at any period after 
its release to a thousandth of a second up 
to three seconds. 

In the second photograph we see the 
steel ball half embedded in the fluid 
(which in this case is water to which, 
for photographic reasons, a little milk is 
added), and notice that it is surrounded 
by an exceedingly beautiful ring or 
sheath of fluid, which bears on its out¬ 
side edge some fine fronds. The liquid 
seems to be repelled in some mysterious 
way from the ball, giving the surround¬ 
ing ring a curl outwards. Xo. 3, photo¬ 
graphed a two-hundredth of a second 
later, shows the coronet at its best; 
the fronds or spikes are now plainly dis- 
cernable. Their life is a very short one. 
owing to the action of surface-tension, 
which may be described as the steady 
pressure of the elastic skm which science 
assumes all fluids to possess. 

Tt will be noticed that under this in¬ 


fluence our fairy coronet has quite lost 
its fronds. In the fourth photograph 
they have nearly disappeared in the form 
of tiny spots, all but invisible in the re¬ 
production. The base of the frond has 
thickened into the form of a “lobe” pro¬ 
jecting from a rim of fluid, which now 
bears the appearance of a “crater” rather 
than that of a coronet. Our beautiful 
fairy coronet finally becomes a mere ring 
surrounding a hole in the water, of the 
depth of which the photographs give but 
little idea. As water is incompressible, 
it follows that the level of the water in 
the vessel must have risen according to 
the size of the hole. 

Although there is very little alteration 
in the surface appearance between X T os. 10 
and 12, great things are happening down 
below, the result of which is the emerg¬ 
ence of the jet in Xo. 14. It shoots out 
of the crater with great velocity, and, al¬ 
though the extreme tip can be just seen 
in the centre of Xo. 13, it attains the 
dimensions shown in the next photo¬ 
graph in a two-hundreth of a second. 

At a depth equal 3 1-7 times the di¬ 
ameter of the ball the hole divides, and, 
owing to the upward thrust of the dis¬ 
placed fluid trying to regain its original 
level, and the pull of the elastic lining of 
the hole, a pillar shoots up. In Xos. 14, 
15, 16, note the remains of the crater, 
and its gradual development into the first 
concentric ripple, the familiar phenome¬ 
non observed when a stone is thrown into 
a pond. 



550 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 



Photographs of progressive effects from a bullet dropped into fresh milk. 
















































REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


no 1 



* 



9 


Time between the photographs, one-thousandth part of a 'econd. 




























552 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


NATURE’S GREATEST FREAKS. 


WONDERS OF THE DESERTS. 

Iceland has a central region compos¬ 
ing the greatest and strangest lava desert 
in the world. The rims and shells of 
lava are formed in the most shaggy and 
ragged shapes to be seen in any such 
regions. Whole cities can be easily 
imagined from the curious structures, and 
the scene is given reality by the wreaths 
of smoke that curl up as from sepulchral 
homes and elsewhere burst forth in vol¬ 
umes as from great foundries and fur¬ 
naces of a manufacturing city. 

California has its Death Valley that 
surpasses all other freaks of earth in its 
paradoxical extremes. At one point it is 
200 feet below the level of the sea for 
seven miles. In this place the sun beats 
down with an average of about 125 
degrees of heat upon borax beds where 
there is not a breath of stirring air or a 
drop of moisture. Around this death pot 
are precipices ranging from 1,000 feet 
to two miles. This place is 350 miles 
from the Pacific ocean in Inyo county, 
near the Nevada line. The entire valley 
is a part of Mojave and Colorado deserts, 
and is about one hundred miles long by 
half as wide. It has continually many 
wonderful mirages known to the Indians 
as Big Spirit pictures. They remain of- 
tenest but a few minutes. 

MAKING A DESERT. 

At the persistent rate of fourteen and 
a fraction inches every hour, twenty-eight 
feet five inches per day, or two miles a 
year, the Great Salt Lake is disappearing. 
The shore lines of this mysterious tide¬ 
less, inland sea, nestling among Utah’s 


hills 4,000 feet above the ocean's level, are 
now contracting day by day to their com¬ 
mon centre at a speed visible to the naked 
eye, and which will mark the lake’s total 
obliteration within the next twenty-five 
years. Possibly before the year 1930 the 
last drop of the Great Salt Lake will have 
evaporated, leaving nothing behind but a 
huge barren salt plain capable of furnish¬ 
ing the whole world’s salt supply for 
many centuries to come. 

This strange lake is the most remark¬ 
able body of water in the world. It is 
nearly 3,000 square miles in area, lying 
1,000 miles inland, at an altitude of 4,250 
feet, and its waters are six times as salt 
as those of the ocean. 

The contents of the lake were recently 
estimated at 1,505,433,600,000 cubic feet, 
and yet, in the opinion of Professor W. J. 
McGee, of Washington, all of this vast 
body of water will have totally disap¬ 
peared within the next twenty-three years. 
Other geologists who have made a care¬ 
ful study of Great Salt Lake have esti¬ 
mated that from twenty-seven to thirty 
years will elapse before the last trace of 
this once enormous inland sea shall have 
vanished. 

So alarming, in a sense, has the drying 
up of Great Salt Lake become during the 
past few’ years that at the instigation of 
the government the Lhiited States Geo¬ 
logical Survey, Division of Hydrography, 
has been making a thorough investigation 
to determine the causes leading’ to the 
lake's disappearance, and the possible out¬ 
come after the last trace of the big inland 
sea has been wiped out forever. A pre- 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


553 


liminary report of the Geological Survey 
says : 

“The decline in the surface of Great 
Salt Lake is causing apprehension among 
the people of Utah. This interesting body 
of water has been steadily sinking for a 
number of years. 

“The movements in the waters have 
been thought to be related to the develop¬ 
ment of agricultural and grazing interests, 
which divert large quantities of water 
from the streams which feed the lake for 
use upon the land. During past years the 
cutting of the timber on the neighboring 
mountains has been unusually heavy, 
practically destroying the forest pro¬ 
tection of the head waters of a number of 
streams whose waters flow into the lake. 
The cutting of these forests is supposed 
to have injured the flow of the streams, 
and thus to have affected the lake level." 

Great Salt Lake received its name from 
Brigham Young in 1847. 

GEYSERS. 

o Iceland's geyser district is about ten 
miles in width and within seeing distance 
of Mount Hecla. The group of largest 
spouters are about 360 feet higher than the 
town of Reykjavik and they are about 600 
feet apart. Strokkur is the largest. A 
sound like a heavy roll of subterranean 
thunder is heard and a column of water 
rises about 800 feet, from which a cloud 
of steam seems to go on into the sky 
Six minutes is about the average duration 
of an eruption, though now and then 
one continues for an entire day. South 
Dakota has its Bad Lands, which are bad 
enough, but far from being as bad as sup- 
posed by the early explorers. Its fossils 
and petrifactions are of great interest to 


scientific collectors, and its strange colors 
and forms are the wonder of travelers. 
Many fertile valleys lie among its hills 
and gulches, where thriving families find 
the most picturesque homes. 

Africa has its vast Sahara, Asia its 
Arabian desert and the desert of Gobi, 
but they are only wide stretches of hot, 
sandy plains, of little interest to any but 
the camel drivers who take the merchants 
and travelers across to more hospitable 
places. 

OCEAN STREAMS. 

The Gulf Stream rises in the Gulf of 
Mexico and reaches a velocity of five 
miles an hour where it passes off the coast 
of Florida. It is about 200 miles wide 
where it passes Newfoundland. Here 
it turns across the Atlantic, where the 
warm water brought from the south gives 
to England its fogs and warmth of cli¬ 
mate. 

THE SARGASSO SEA. 

This vast accumulation of seaweed is 
the result of the current of the Gulf 
Stream bringing drift to that point from 
its long course. The living and dead 
vegetation there is so thick that no ship 
can go through it. 

THE MAELSTROM. 

This is the greatest whirlpool in the 
world, and was once famed by many 
thrilling stories. It is situated off the 
coast of Norway, between the islands of 
Loffoden and Moskoe. It is caused by 
the tide flowing against a rocky angle of 
the shores, causing it to turn upon itself. 
The whirl is about a mile and a half in 
diameter. 



554 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS. 

Greenland is the home of glaciers and 
the birthplace of icebergs. The vast 
gorges of tide mountains inclined toward 
the sea are filled with snow that becomes 
packed into ice and under the tremendous 
pressure of countless weight it yields 
enough to move slowly like a sluggish 
stream downward, to the end in the ocean. 
There the enormous ends are broken off 
to 1 float away as icebergs. Seven-eighths 
of the mountain of ice is submerged and 
yet the icebergs often tower higher than 
the tallest masts of a ship. 

PITCH LAKE. 

Trinidad has a fresh water lake of 300 
acres, the surface of which is covered with 
pitch from a spring of asphalt that bub¬ 
bles up in the centre and hardens upon 
exposure to air upon the surface of the 
water. The lake is eighty feet above sea 
level, but no soundings yet taken have 
been able to find any bottom at the centre 
in the asphalt fountain. It is estimated 
that enough pitch can be secured from 
this place to pave all the streets of the 
world so long as there are cities with 
streets to pave. 

CRATER LAKE. 

Oregon has a crater lake about 140 
miles from the Pacific and seventy miles 
above the California line. The lake is 
6,251 feet above tbe sea level and is in a 
basin whose precipitous walls are from 
500 feet to 2,800 feet high. Its centre 
has a wide depth of 2,008 feet. The 
water at the surface is higher than Mount 
Washington. 

PETRIFIED FORESTS. 

On a plateau 5,500 feet high is a for¬ 
est of fir trees over a section of eight 


square miles that has been turned to stone 
Scientists can find no data from which 
to estimate the period when this was 
done. The theory has been advanced 
that a volcanic shower of ashes buried tbe 
forest, and inundations of water from 
limestone regions completed the process 
of petrifaction. These trees are covered 
with a coating of sand and gravel indi¬ 
cating the action of water. 

The largest forest of petrified trees is 
to be found in Arizona. It has now be¬ 
come a National Park, and is in the care 
of the United States Government. Any¬ 
one who intrudes unlawfully, or who does 
unlawful damage, is subject to a fine of 
$5,000 and imprisonment for twelve 
months. 

The forest covers an area of nearly 100 
square miles. Within its bounds the 
wonderful trees are scattered in wild con¬ 
fusion. Not one is standing—most are 
broken into huge sections, stripped of 
limb and twig—great, glistening logs of 
rock. 

Time was when tbe forest giants were * 
sturdy with life and mantled with lux¬ 
uriant foliage. This was not many cen¬ 
turies ago, but ages and ages ago—in 
short, millions of years ago, so the record 
of geology declares. When they tossed 
their branches to the breeze the Ameri¬ 
can continent was in the beginning of its 
formation. 

When they died they were carried 
some distance by streams and water¬ 
logged. Here they were turned into 
stone, the wood, as it decomposed, being 
replaced by tbe silica in the sand that 
gradually covered it. Particle by particle 
each cell was replaced by mineral matter, 
so that the original form, to the minutest 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


555 


details, was exactly reproduced. Then 
the waters gradually subsided, leaving the 
stone trees on dry land. That, at least, 
is the scientific explanation of the wonder¬ 
ful stone trees found on the American 
continent. 

THE LARGEST VOLCANO. 

Mauna Loa is the great volcanic lake 
of Hawaii. It is 13,700 feet above the 
sea. The crater is 6,000 feet in diameter, 
within a ragged wall 1,000 feet high. 
This parent crater has several offsprings 
at its side. The most noted of these is 
Kilauea, which has an area of nearly 
3,000 acres. 

Maui, an island contiguous, has an ex¬ 
tinct volcano having a crater with an area 
of nineteen square miles. 

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 
THE GREATEST NATURAL WON¬ 
DERLAND ON EARTH. 

Lofty mountains, mighty cataracts, 
deep canyons, many colored cliffs, 
spouting geysers, mud volcanoes and the 
last home of North American wild ani¬ 
mals, are a few of the wonders of the 
region known as Yellowstone National 
Park. 

This national reservation, set apart for 
public uses by an act of Congress passed 
in 1872, covers a tract of about sixty-five 
miles in length, from north to south, and 
about fifty-five miles in width, from east 
to west, lying chiefly in northwestern 
Wyoming, and overlapping, to a small 
extent, the boundaries of Montana, on 
the north, and Idaho, on the west. This 
gives an area of 3,312 square miles, a 
tract that is nearly the area of the states 
of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, 
and nearly half as large as the State of 


Massachusetts. The Rocky Mountain 
chain crosses the southwestern por¬ 
tion in an irregular line, leaving by far 
the greater expanse on the eastern side. 
The least elevation of any of the narrow 
valleys is 6,000 feet, and some of them are 
from 1,000 to 2,000 feet higher. The 
mountain ranges which hem in these val¬ 
leys are from 10,000 to upward of 11.000 
feet in height. Electric Peak (in the north¬ 
west corner of the park, not far back of 
Mammoth Hot Springs) having an eleva¬ 
tion of 11. 155 feet, and Mount Langford 
and Turret Mountain (both in the Yel¬ 
lowstone Range) reaching the height of 
11,155 and 11,142 feet respectively. 

VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES. 

Scientists have many theories concern¬ 
ing volcanoes and earthquakes, but none . 
are so popularly accepted as that of in¬ 
ternal fires causing explosions by the gen¬ 
eration of gases. In fact, it bears all the 
phenomena of a vast boiler explosion to 
which geysers and similar eruptions bear 
strong collateral testimony. Streams of 
melted rock have been known to run 
twelve or fifteen miles before cooling 
enough to solidify. 

It is supposed that the crust of the 
earth is not more than thirty miles thick 
in some places and that at fifty miles 
all substances are there in a fluid state, 
held compact by the weight of the solid 
crust. 

Two lines of volcanoes circle the earth 
as though along a region of weakness or 
fissure in the crust. One runs from the 
north pole along the line of mountains 
in western America, around along the 
eastern coast of Asia. The other passes 
through Hawaii, Mexico; the West Indies, 
Italy and Asia Minor. Where these lines 



556 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


cross are the most active volcanoes. A Hecla, of Iceland, will produce a similar 
curious thing is that some of these vol- activity in Mount Vesuvius, of Italy. 



Artesian well at Guilford, West Australia. Surplus 1,120,000 gallons daily. 


canoes on different parts of the earth 
appear to be connected. It has long been 
known that any special activity in Mount 


Volcanic disturbances and earthquakes 
are so intimately connected that whatever 
explains the one will probably explain the 












REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


00 i 


other. Japan, Italy and the West Indies 
have suffered the most from earthquakes 
and the record of persons destroyed ranks 
next in numbers to the destruction of 
wars. 

GREAT CAVES. 

Subterranean caverns are always mys¬ 
terious and interesting objects. . They 
are most usually caused by the action of 
water either in the action of waves or by 
percolating down through the earth and 
dissolving the softer substances below 
thick strata of rocks. 

The most famous wave-made cave is 
that of the Blue Grotto of Capri Island 
in the Mediterranean near Naples. It can 
be entered only by small boats during a 
calm sea. The cavern runs far back and 
its blue vaults are covered with glittering 
crystals that reflect the lights in magnifi¬ 
cent brilliancy. 

There are hundreds of known caves 
that have never been fully explored and 
no one can conjecture what may yet be 
found in them. Hardly a year passes 
without the discovery of new ones, each 
with its own peculiar interest. 

Of all the largest known caves, the 
Mammoth cave of Kentucky has been the 
most extensively explored and yet the end 
of many of its passages have never been 
reached. Wind Cave, in the Black Hills 
of South Dakota, has three thousand 
rooms already discovered, varying in size 
from a bedroom to three acres in extent. 
It derives its name from the unexplained 
fact that a terrific wind sometimes blows 
out of the cave and again into it. 

GRAND CANYON. 

The Grand Canyon of Arizona, through 
which the Colorado River runs, is com¬ 
monly accredited with being the most 


magnificent scenery in the world. At 
some points the river is 6.000 feet below 
the observer on its shores, and the grand 
terraces cover a thousand square miles. 
The observer sees stretched out before 
him gorges and mountains of white, red 
and black, mingled with varying shades 
of color. It is stated by scientists that 
this awful gorge was cut out alone by 
the action of the stream of water, and 
the time taken to do this constitutes an 
age or era in the geological history of 
the earth. 

NIAGARA FALLS. 

The world's wonders include nothing 
that appeals more strongly to the poetic 
imagination than the great cataract of 
Niagara. The flow of water is 275,000 
cubic feet a second, and the force is esti¬ 
mated to be equivalent to that of 8,000,- 
000 horses. Certain power companies 
have been given concessions to utilize this 
force under limited conditions. One has 
cut into the river a mile above the Ameri¬ 
can falls with a canal twelve feet wide 
leading to a wheel pit thirty feet wide by 
200 feet long, and 180 feet deep, having 
a force of 100.000 horse-power, and by 
the use of turbines giving a capacity of 
40,000 horse-power. These turbines are 
70 inches in diameter and have 36 blades, 
each 142 inches square. 

Horseshoe Falls is 600 yards in 
breadth, with a fall of 154 feet, and is 
thrown about 50 feet from the base of the 
cliff. Goat or Iris Island, 75 acres in 
extent, divides this from the American 
falls. 

GREATEST WATER FALLS IN THE 
WORLD. 

The greatest cataract in the world has 
now been discovered. It is a waterfall 




558 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


so far surpassing Niagara and the Zam¬ 
besi falls in size, grandeur and volume 
that the marvel is it has not been heard 
of before, although it is concealed in an 
impenetrable forest, 1,000 miles by boat 
from the nearest large city. This newly 
discovered wonder of the world, which 
has now cast Niagara and Victoria into 
the shade and will be for all future time 
the premier waterfall of the earth, is sit¬ 
uated on a river dividing Brazil from 
Argentina. It is called the Falls of Igu- 
azu. The finding of it is the greatest 
discovery of the twentieth century. 

Iguazu is sixty feet higher than the 
falls of Niagara, nearly three times great¬ 
er in width, and its volume of water is 
60 per cent larger. This newly-discov¬ 
ered cataract is more than twice the 
width of the celebrated falls of the Zam¬ 
besi. More than half as much water 
again goes over the Falls of Iguazu as 
over the Zambesi Falls, which have often 
been claimed as surpassing Niagara in 
size, though not equaling it in beauty. 
The Falls of the Zambesi are ioo feet 
higher than the Iguazu cataract, but the 
gigantic size and enormous volume of 
the latter so far surpass those of Zam¬ 
besi that the two are not in the same 
class. 

It is claimed—and apparently with 
truth—that both Niagara and Victoria 
Falls are far excelled in grandeur, beauty 
and sublimity by the Falls of Iguazu. 

That a cataract twice as big as Niagara 
should exist today unknown to the 
world is a statement of the most startling 
character. Apparently it is inconceivable 
that a natural wonder of this kind should 
exist anywhere on the earth without man¬ 
kind having heard of it long ago. 


A general idea has spread abroad dur¬ 
ing the last few years that there is nothing 
great left to uncover, that the big discov¬ 
eries of geographers have all been made, 
that the unexplored portions of the earth 
have all been explored, that there are no 
longer any dark continents, no new mar¬ 
velous spectacles, and no further lessons 
to be learned. 

'Fhe day of the discoverer and explorer 
has not passed. There are vast tracts of 
earth whose contents are still unknown to 
the world. 

No more august spectacle has the eye 
of man rested upon than this mighty 
river, twice as big as the Niagara, hurry¬ 
ing to the sea with incredible swiftness 
and tumbling 28,000,000 cubic feet of 
water per minute over a precipice 210 
feet high. 

Fligher waterfalls than this exist in 
plenty. But they are mere trickling riv¬ 
ulets compared with the giant volume of 
the Iguazu. In our own western coun¬ 
try and in Switzerland considerable 
streams are shot over the edge of a preci¬ 
pice so high that they actually disappear 
and never reach the ground except in the 
form of light spray blown hither and 
thither by the wind. Waterfalls of this 
character a thousand feet high are by no 
means uncommon. 

But what makes Niagara great is its 
volume of water. If you can realize the 
meaning of 18,000,000 cubic feet of 
water per minute falling a distance of 
150 feet over a precipice 5,260 feet wide, 
you begin to understand just why Niag¬ 
ara is the marvel it is to the whole civ¬ 
ilized world. As a matter of fact, 
Niagara and Victoria Falls on the Zam¬ 
besi are almost identically alike in size 






REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


559 


and volume, but the latter exceeds Xiasf- 

o 

ara somewhat in height. There is, in 
fact a very close resemblance between 
the two greatest cataracts in the world, 
which occupy a class by themselves. 

Now, when you consider that the vol¬ 
ume of each (which makes it great) is 
18.000.000 cubic feet per minute and 
that the volume of the newly discovered 
Iguazu Falls is 28.000.000 cubic feet per 
minute, or 60 per cent larger, you then 
begin to realize what a stupendous cat¬ 
aract Iguazu must be. 

Reflect that Iguazu is over one-third 
again higher than Niagara. On top of 
this bear in mind that the width of the 
cataract of Niagara is 5.249 feet and that 
of Victoria Falls 5.580 feet, while that of 
the newly found Falls of Iguazu is 13.123 
feet. Iguazu is therefore 60 per cent 
greater in volume and more than 100 per 
cent greater in size than either Niagara 
or the Falls of the Zambesi. 

The newly-found cataract is nearly 
3.000 feet greater in width than Niagara 
and Victoria combined. 

Incredible as these statements may 
seem, they are authenticated in a man¬ 
ner which puts them beyond question. 
They are the result of observations by a 
body of expert engineers and are offi¬ 
cially put forward as facts, and are 
vouched for by the government of Ar¬ 
gentina. 

A MOUNTAIN OF SOAP. 

In a mountain near Elko, Nevada, there 
is an inexhaustable supply of pure soap. 
One may enter the mine with a butcher’s 
knife and cut as large a piece as he wants. 
It is beautifully mottled, and on being ex¬ 
posed to the air hardens somewhat. The 


mountain of clay is of fine texture, and 
it contains boracic acid, soda, and borate 
of lime. 

Its color is given it by the iron and 
other minerals. In its natural state it is 
rather strong in alkali, and removes ink 
and other stains readily. At one time it 
was used in all the lavatories on the Pull¬ 
man cars, but as soon as this fact became 
generally known the cakes were carried 
away by travelers as souvenirs. The rail¬ 
way company could not supply the de¬ 
mand, so it was forced to discontinue its 
use. 

MIRAGE. 

Wherever the air lies in strata of dif¬ 
ferent densities, the mirage may be seen. 
This is especially true in arid regions. It 
may be from reflection, as when the layer 
of denser air acts as a mirror, or from 
refraction, as when it changes the rays 
of light in a manner similar to clear water, 
or from the projection of a shadow, or 
from looming. Looming is a form of 
mirage where the air acts as an enlarging 
lense. Objects thus appear nearer and 
larger, as may often be seen in fogs. 

The spectre of Brocken is a famous 
example of shadow projection. This is 
seen from the peak of Brocken, the high¬ 
est elevation in the Hartz Mountains in 
Hanover. The setting sun throws the 
shadow of the visitor upon the eastern 
sky in a most gigantic form, the enormous 
image distinctly reproducing every move¬ 
ment. The Fata Morgana is an awe-in¬ 
spiring mirage seen in the Strait of Mes¬ 
sina, where the observer on shore can see 
images in the air. sometimes in the water, 
of men, ships, and cities, so distinctly as 
to seem impossible to be a deception. 




560 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


These are mirrored reflections from the 
objects at places invisible to the observer. 

The Arctic regions are favorable to 
fata morgana scenes from the rugged ice¬ 
fields, which the imagination of the be¬ 
holder easily converts into the most sen¬ 
sational and romantic visions of undis¬ 
covered people and cities in the unexplored 
regions about the north pole. 

GREAT BONES. 

Giants lived in ancient times, but they 
were not men. Our forefathers found 
bones of antediluvian monsters-and were 
certain that they had discovered the re¬ 
mains of ancestors of fabulous size and 
age. 

Cuvier found parts of skeletons that 
could have belonged only to monster 
beasts thirty or forty feet long, weighing 
many tons. He gave the first comparative 
study of these things that have resulted 
in making a very probable scientific guess 
at the appearance and habits of those gi¬ 
gantic animals. 

The plesiosaurus was a sea-lizard with 
a neck that looked like a serpent, paddles 
like a whale, a tail like a kangaroo. The 
horned dinosaur had a length of twenty- 
five feet, with a bodv like an enormous 
rhinoceros. The armored dinosaur was 
fully thirty feet in length, with great fan¬ 
like hinged scales, usually erect along his 
backbone, the largest of which had a 
surface of two square feet. The brouto- 
saurus was not less than sixty feet in 
length and weighed probably more than 
twenty tons. Its feet made a track one 
square yard in extent. 

The atlantasaurus was not less than 
eighty feet in length and twenty-five feet 
high. A thigh-bone from this monster 


has been found in Colorado measuring six 
feet ten inches in length and weighing 500 
pounds. The pterodactyls were like bats, 
and one species is known, from the im¬ 
pression of its form left in clay that be¬ 
came rock, to have a spread of wing not 
less than twenty-five feet. In the fossil 
deposits of Kansas, there have been found 
the skeletons of sea serpents eighty feet 
in length, and in Wyoming an animal like 
the hippopotamus known as the tinoceras, 
whose body measured over twelve feet, 
with a weight of not less than three tons. 
The great mammoth, double the size of 
any living elephant, has been found frozen 
in the ice of northern Siberia, fully pre¬ 
served as at the day of its death. Ac¬ 
cording to geologists it had lain there 
10.000 years. This animal appears to 
have roamed all over the world. 

New Zealand has furnished us with the 
bones of the bird Moa whose skeleton is 
twelve feet in height. Its egg is fourteen 
inches in diameter and contains two gal¬ 
lons. 

The largest bird now on earth is the 
ostrich and the largest flying bird is the 
condor. The condor presents some un¬ 
explained problems to scientists. Darwin 
writes that he once watched with a power¬ 
ful field glass a condor soaring at a great 
height for half an hour and not once could 
he see the slightest movement made by 
wings, pinions or the body of the bird. 
Theories are at fault to account for the 
great distances through which it can dis¬ 
cover its food. It rarely rests below the 
snow line of the mountains, but a newly 
slain animal thirty miles from its living 
place will be visited by several of these 
birds before an hour has passed. 




REMARKABLE El'OLUTIOXS IX XATURE 


501 


LARGEST ANIMALS. 

The largest animal of any class is the 
finback whale of the Atlantic ocean with¬ 
in the temperate zone, which sometimes 
attains a length of ioo feet. The largest 
fish is the shark of the Indio-Pacific 
region, which grows to a length of sev¬ 


enty feet. The largest bird is the ostrich, 
which sometimes stands eight feet high 
and weighs 350 pounds. The largest rep¬ 
tile is the salt water crocodile of Australia 
and southern Asia; it may measure thirty 
feet in length. 


THE DEEP SEA—ITS FREAKS AND MONSTERS. 


At the depth of a mile it is absolutely 
dark, the temperature is just above the 
freezing point, there is no perceptible 
movement of the water, and the pressure 
is almost incalculable. Fine, soft mud 
covers the bottom. There is no plant life 
and the little variety of animal life is 
very peculiar. Scientists calculate that 
the pressure upon every square inch is 
twenty-five times greater than required 
to drive an ordinary passenger train. As 
this pressure diminishes toward the sur¬ 
face. the deep-sea animals are in constant 
danger, so to speak, of falling upwards. 
Nature has provided for this, however, in 
the compactness of its cells, and. as long 
as the animal stays in the places that har¬ 
monizes with its structure, it is enabled 
to retain its equilibrium. 

SCIENTISTS AND THE SEA 
SERPENTS. 

The earliest historical record of a sea 
-erpent dates back thousands of years. 
Thus Livy tells of an extraordinary ser¬ 
pent one hundred and twenty feet long 
which, during the Punic wars under Atil- 
us Regulus, had its lair on the banks of 
the River Bragados, near Ithaca, and is 
said to have swallowed many soldiers, 
and to have kept the army from crossing 
the river. Being invulnerable to ordinary 
weapons, it had finally to be attacked with 


catapults and other military engines, such 
as were used in those days against forti¬ 
fied towns. Its annoyance did not cease 
with its death, for the water became so 
polluted with its gore and the air with 
the noxious fumes from its decaying car¬ 
cass that the soldiers had to remove their 
camps a very considerable distance away. 
They, however, secured the creature's skin 
and enormous skull, which were preserved 
in a temple at Rome till the time of the 
Numantine War. From that time to the 
present almost countless reports have been 
made, some in extensive circumstantial 
detail, witnessed often by numerous per¬ 
sons of unimpeachable reputation, con¬ 
cerning the discovery of these monsters 
of the deep. 

The latest and by far the most authori¬ 
tative account of the observation of a sea 
serpent was made only a few days ago 
by the officers and crew of the French 
warship Decidee on the Indo-Chinese sta¬ 
tion. They saw the monster in the Bay of 
Along, near Haiphong. 

A GREAT MONSTER. 

In his report to the Admiral the com¬ 
mander says: “I was standing on the 
bridge when my attention was directed to 
a round, dark mass in the water, about 
300 yards to port. I took it to be a rock, 
but. on seeing it move, presumed it was an 






5f,2 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


enormous turtle, four or five yards in di¬ 
ameter. 

“Soon afterward it rose out of the 
water, and by the undulatory movement 
that followed I saw that I was in the pres¬ 
ence of an enormous sea monster shaped 
like a flat-bodied serpent of about a hun¬ 
dred feet in length. 

“It appeared to have a soft, black skin 
covered with marble spots, and the head, 
which rose about sixteen feet out of the 
water, closely resembled that of an enor¬ 
mous turtle with huge scales. It blew up 
two jets of water to a height of about 
fifty feet. 

“It moved slowly through the water at 
a speed of about eight knots, and when 
about 150 yards from the gunboat 
plunged beneath it like a submarine, re¬ 
appearing on the surface about 400 yards 
away. 

“1 had meanwhile given orders for the 
port barbette gun to be loaded with shrap¬ 
nel, and when the monster arose we gave 
him a broadside. This, I thought, would 
be a surer method of reaching the ser¬ 
pent than with a solid shot. 

“Whether or not any of the shrapnel 
struck the creature I cannot say. It cer¬ 
tainly did not appear to have the slight¬ 
est effect. The serpent merely turned its 
head at the sound of the report,, sent up 
two great sprays of water from its nos¬ 
trils and headed for the open sea. 

“It would have been my intention to* 
overtake and either kill or head off the 
serpent, driving it in towards shallower 
water, but that was impossible. Two 
more broadsides were sent after the ser¬ 
pent, which continued to rapidly increase 
the distance between it and the Decidee. 
These shots did not appear any more ef¬ 


fective than the first one, leading me to 
believe the creature was provided with 
either scales or skin of such toughness 
that the pieces of shrapnel which struck 
it glanced off harmlessly. 

“A number of the officers and crew 
also watched the monster, which grad¬ 
ually disappeared from view.” 

Curiously enough, Lieutenant Lagre¬ 
sille, one of the officers of the gunboat, 
while cruising in 1898 off the same coast 
in the gunboat Avalanche, met with a 
similar experience. 

Lieutenant Lagresille was in command 
of the Avalanche at that time. In his 
official report made to the French Navy 
Department he declares that on one July 
day of that year he saw in the waters of 
the bay two great swimming creatures, 
twenty metres long and two or three in 
diameter. He could not go into particu¬ 
lars at that time, for, with the instinct of 
the hunter, he immediately took a shot at 
them at a range of 600 metres, where¬ 
upon they sank under the water and did 
not appear again. On the 15th of the fol¬ 
lowing February, however, while again 
crossing the bay, he saw a pair of the 
same creatures, possibly the same indi¬ 
viduals, and gave chase for an hour and 
a half, firing at them from time to time. 
Once, he is sure, one of the creatures 
was hit, but the ball glanced off harm¬ 
lessly. 

The chase was eventually given up for 
the reason, as Lieutenant Lagresille ex- 
plains in his report, that the sea serpent 
had greater endurance than the Ava¬ 
lanche. But he had time to make some 
observations. The animal was gray in 
color, and it seemed to him that it had 
many flippers. On this point scientists 





REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


563 


agree that probably it had only four, but 
that they moved too rapidly to be counted. 
It swam with an undulatory movement 
in a vertical plane, its body not being 
rigid like that of a whale, but extremely 
flexible. 

With these particulars and other facts 
of an equally positive nature, which have 
been collected from time to time, it has 
been possible for scientists, both here and 
abroad, to complete a very satisfactory 
description of the modern sea serpent and 
to trace his ancestry back through the 
ages to the plesiosaurs and other monster 
forms of marine life, the fossilized re¬ 
mains of which have been found from 
time to time. 

EVIDENCES GIVEN TO A FRENCH 
SOCIETY. 

The French Zoological Society has re¬ 
ceived a report from Professor Emile G. 
Racovitza, of the Arago Laboratory, who 
has collected indisputable proofs of the 
sea serpent's existence, in which he de¬ 
clares that the megaphias magaphias is 
actually abundant in the region on the 
coast of Tonkin which bears the general 
name of the Bay of Along. 

“It cannot be doubted/' Professor Ra¬ 
covitza declares, “that the capture of the 
great sea serpent would be an important 
scientific exploit, but this, as we have seen, 
is almost impossible to hope for with a 
merchant vessel or a warship with its 
ordinary armament. It will be much more 
useful and just as interesting for these 
sorts of ships to approach the animal as 
near as possible and make photographs 
and sketches. The very worst thing to 
do is to shoot it on sight, because it prob¬ 
ably keeps on the surface only by swim¬ 
ming and will sink like a hump-backed 


whale when killed. Attack it, therefore, 
only in shallow water or with a harpoon 
gun. Supposing that the creature should 
venture into a shallow harbor, the proper 
tactics are to approach it slowly in a con¬ 
centric curve, as quietly as possible, to a 
distance of a half mile or so, and then 
make the direct attack cautiously in a 
small boat. 

Individual reports made by officers and 
men of the French gunboats Avalanche 
and Decidee and of the French ship Bay¬ 
ard, all of whom saw one or more of the 
sea serpents, agree in saying that the 
monster's head was very like that of a 
seal, only many times larger, of course. 
When the serpent came up after diving it 
blew water high in the air as a whale 
does; the only difference being that the 
water spread like a cloud of spray in¬ 
stead of spouting straight up like a jet. 
The officers of the Bayard distinctly saw 
a crest along the serpent's back. This is 
believed to have been a mane. The blow¬ 
holes through which the creature also 
breathed were very wide apart. An aver¬ 
age of about ten minutes seemed to elapse 
between inhalations. 

ANCESTOR OF THE SEA SERPENT. 

The plesiosaur, which roamed the seas 
during the jurassic period, has been rec¬ 
ognized as one of the modern sea ser¬ 
pent's mightiest and most formidable pre¬ 
historic ancestors. Several species of this 
monster of the deep are known to science, 
and specimens have been found ranging 
from dwarfs of twenty feet in length to 
full-grown types which must have meas¬ 
ured in life at least seventy-five feet from 
nose to tip of tail. 

In this particular monster the tail had 
not developed to any great extent. In 



564 : 


BOOK OF TIIE TIMES 


fact, comparatively speaking, it was ex¬ 
tremely short. This was because the 
plesiosaur relied more upon its four 
enormous paddles than its tail for propel¬ 
ling power. These paddles were from 
seven to fifteen feet long, and placed far 
back. This accounted for the short tail 
and very long neck. 

The plesiosaur’s head was relatively 
small, being not more than eight feet 
long. Its most distinguishing features 
were the elongated snout and the double 
rows of conical teeth, each one foot long 
and inserted in a distinct socket. 

As regards the habits of the plesiosaur, 
Dr. Conybeare, the distinguished English 
scientist, has arrived at the following con¬ 
clusions : 

“That it was acpiatic is evident from 
the form of its paddles; that it was marine 
is almost equally so from the remains 
with which it is universally associated; 
that it may have occasionally visited the 
shore, the resemblance of its extremities 
to those of the turtles may lead us to 
conjecture. Its movements, however, 
must have been very awkward on land, 
and its long neck must have impeded its 
progress through the water, presenting 
a strong contrast to the organization 
which so admirably fits the itchthyosarus 
to cut through the waves.” 

THE SEA SERPENT A LAND 
ANIMAL. 

As the respiratory organs of the plesio¬ 
saur were such that it must of necessity 
have required to obtain air frequently, it 
has been naturally concluded by Dr. H. 
Alleyne Nicholson, professor of natural 
history in the University of St. Andrews, 
Edinburgh, “that it swam upon or near 


the surface, arching back its long neck 
like a swan, and occasionally darting it 
down at the fish which happened to float 
within its reach. It may, perhaps, have 
lurked in shoal water along the coast, 
concealed among the seaweed, and rais¬ 
ing its nostrils to a level with the sur¬ 
face from a considerable depth, may have 
found a secure retreat from the assaults 
of powerful enemies; while the length 
and flexibility of its neck may have com¬ 
pensated for the want of strength in its 
jaws and its incapacity for swift motion 
through the water.” 

Returning to the sea serpent of mod¬ 
ern times, it is interesting to note the 
many points of similarity between the 
creature seen recently in the Bay of Along, 
and the sea serpent which formed the sub¬ 
ject of an official report to the British 
Admiralty from Commander McQutae, 
of the English warship Daedalus, in 1848. 
The ship was homeward bound from the 
East Indies and about ten miles north¬ 
east from St. Helena when this serpent 
was sighted. 

“The commander and his officers were 
startled by the sight of a huge marine 
animal,” the official report reads, “which 
reared its head out of the water within 
twenty yards of the ship. The head was 
like a runbuoy, about eight feet in diame¬ 
ter. It had a scroll or tuft of loose skin 
encircling it, about two feet from the 
top. The water was discolored for sev¬ 
eral hundreds of feet from its head.” 

In an extremely interesting little book 
entitled “Sea Monsters Unmasked,” by 
Professor Henry Lee, formerly naturalist 
to the Brighton Aquarium, England, the 
author goes fully into the history of the 







<u 




























566 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


sea serpent, at the same time expressing 
his firm belief in the existence of sea 
animals of great size. 

“Only a few years ago," he says, “any 
one who expressed his belief in the exist¬ 
ence of a sea serpent or other marine 
monster formidable enough to capsize a 
boat or pull a man out of one was derided 
for his credulity, although voyagers had 
constantly reported that in the Indian seas 
they were so dreaded that the natives al¬ 
ways carried hatchets with them in their 
canoes with which to defend themselves 
from attack by these creatures. 

“We now know that their existence is 
no fiction; for individuals have been cap¬ 
tured measuring more than fifty feet, and 
some are reported to have measured 
eighty feet in length. 

“As marine snakes many feet long and 
having fin-like tails adapted for swim¬ 
ming abound over an extensive range, 
and are frequently met with far out at 
sea, I cannot regard it as impossible that 
some also may attain to an abnormal and 
colossal development. Dr. Andrew Wil¬ 
son, who has given much attention to this 
subject, is of the opinion that in this high 
development of ordinary forms we dis¬ 
cover the true and natural law of the pro¬ 
duction of the giant serpent of the sea. 
It goes far, at any rate, toward accounting 
for its supposed appearance. I am con¬ 
vinced that, while naturalists have been 
searching among the vertebrata for a so¬ 
lution of the problem, the great unknown, 
and therefore unrecognized, calamaries, 
by their elongated cylindrical bodies and 
peculiar mode of swimming, have played 
the part of the sea serpent in many a well- 
authenticated incident. 


DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCIENT 
SEA SERPENT. 

“The similarity of such an animal to 
the plesiosaur of old is remarkable. That 
curious compound reptile, which has been 
compared with ‘a snake threaded through 
the body of a turtle,’ is described by Dean 
Buckland as ‘having the head of a lizard, 
the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enor¬ 
mous length, resembling the body of a ser¬ 
pent, the ribs of a chameleon, and the 
paddles of a whale.’ In the number of its 
cervical vertebrae—about thirty-three—it 
surpasses that of the longest-necked bird, 
the swan. 

“The form and movements of this an¬ 
cient saurian agree so markedly with some 
of the accounts given of ‘the great sea 
serpent’ that Mr. Edward Xewman has 
advanced the opinion that the closest affin¬ 
ities of the latter would be found to be 
with the enaliosaurians, or marine lizards, 
whose fossil remains are so abundant in 
the East Indies and Chinese waters.” 

STORIES FROM ANNAM. 

There is an endless series of sea ser¬ 
pent tales among the natives of Annam. 

“The dragon did it!" is a kind of stock 
excuse among the natives. If a pig boy 
lose—or sell—half of his herd, he will 
say that the dragon did it. If the cattle 
of a native farmer get into the plantation 
of a European by night, it is the dragon 
that has tramped down the crop. * * * 
The dragon is on the Annamite flag, as 
it is on that of the Chinese. * * * 

It is true that enormous footprints are 
sometimes seen on the shore of the Bay of 
Along. They are five times as big as 
the footprints of any elephant. And they 
look more like handprints than footprints! 




REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


507 


They were photographed two years ago 
by an unprejudiced and curious French¬ 
man at the time when a dragon story oc¬ 
cupied the French court of Hai Phong. 

Here are the facts. Hong Hai. on the 
shore of the bay. is an important port on 
account of near-by coal mines, which have 
been for some time doing a good business. 
Hong Hai grew rapidly and there was 
naturally a lot of building. 

Among the builders was a Frenchman 
named Yasseur. and it was he who built 
the first European apartment houses. He 
built two of them, six stories and a man¬ 
sard. each on a corner opposite the port, 
on the very shore of the bay. 

On the evening of September 13. 1901, 
the two fine apartment houses stood com¬ 
pletely finished. 

On the morning of September 14 both 
were in ruins. 

They had fallen inward, in masses of 
brick, mortar, iron and wood. 

Yasseur, the builder, brought a suit in 
the French court at Hai Phong against 
the native contractor for furnishing bad 
material and negligent work. And now 
comes the queer part. 

The contractor pleaded in court: 

“The dragon pushed the houses down.” 

And the extraordinary thing was that 
he could bring up twenty native wit¬ 
nesses to the fact that “the dragon." com¬ 
ing from the bay by night, did do the 
damage. 

“What is the dragon like?" asked the 
judge. 

“Everybody knows what the dragon is 


like." answered the witnesses. “Look at 
the flag." 

"On the flag he has legs. Has the 
dragon legs?" 

“Sure he has legs.” 

“A long tail like a serpent?” 

“Yes.” 

“A long neck?” 

“Yes." 

"He must be big to push a house in,” 
said the judge. 

And here the natives stood mute. The 
story was laughed out of court by the 
superior Europeans and the native con¬ 
tractor was cast in damages. 

But the European who photographed 
the mysterious footprints on the sand has 
always said, "What creature made those 
footprints?" The insinuation that they 
were made by the native contractor to 
back up his story is not satisfying. 

Were the tracks made by an iguano- 
don ? 

The iguanodon has arms and legs and 
can walk upright like a man. Or are 
there both the plesiosauruses and iguano- 
dons in the infernal bay of Along? Na¬ 
tive tales tell of outrageous battles be¬ 
tween dragons on that coast by night. 

That there is.something in it is ac¬ 
knowledged by the pundits of the French 
academy. The French navy is discussing 
plans for investigation. One of these 
days shortly you will see an expedition 
going out to capture one of the ^ea ser¬ 
pents of the bay of Along, iguanodon. 
sanlodon. ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, 
mosasaurus. 




568 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FLOATING ISLANDS. 


Mexican lakes are prolific in floating 
islands. They are, in fact, floating gar¬ 
dens, with crops of beans, peas, potatoes, 
etc., and gay with varied flowers. “There 
are two sorts of them,” says Humboldt, 
“the one in movement and driven about by 
the winds, and the other fixed and attached 
to the shore.” The origin of these 
Chinampas, as they are called, has been 
traced back to the fourteenth century. 
They are partly natural and partly arti¬ 
ficial. Masses of tangled vegetation col¬ 
lect together in the water, and when these 
natural rafts become strong enough soil 
is placed upon them. Thus they become 
floating gardens. The movable ones are 
towed or pushed with strong poles from 
place to place. 

METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION. 

On one of a group of such islands may 
be seen the cottage of the guard. In 
Humboldt's time it was one of the sights 
to see the boats laden with vegetables and 
flowers grown on the Chinampas coming 
down the canals to the cities of Istacalco 
and Chaleo. The promenade around the 
lakes among the floating islands was one 
of the finest to be had in the environs of 
Mexico. A more recent traveler, Brockle- 
hurst, also describes these floating gardens 
of Mexico. The lakes were covered in 
parts by tangled masses of reeds, water 
plants and bushes. As soon as one of 
these masses was strong enough, strips of 
turf were laid upon it. This was done 
several times, and then some soil laid on 
the surface. It was now a garden, and 
yielded crops of vegetables and flowers. 
At the time of the Spanish conquest thou¬ 


sands of them were to be seen on the 
lakes. A large part of the revenues of 
the Astic kings came from the cultiva¬ 
tion of these floating gardens. They 
were from ioo to 200 feet long, and 
from 20 to 100 broad. Long wil- 
low poles were driven through them 
into the bottom of the lake, there to take 
root and keep the island anchored. 

The floating islands of the Chinese fish¬ 
ermen are also interesting. These are 
towed after the boats as they sail or row 
over the lakes and rivers. The intense 
economy of the Chinese mind makes 
every square yard of soil profitable, and 
here is a striking illustration. Making a 
raft of bamboos and interweaving it with 
reeds and long grass, the fisherman then 
covers it with soil. On this floating island 
he grows his onions and other vegetables, 
towing his garden after him as he follows 
his vocation up and down the river or 
lake. The Nile has its islands of floating 
vegetation. Sometimes the White Nile 
is entirely blocked by an enormous num¬ 
ber of floating islands. They are largely 
made up of the famed papyrus. Some¬ 
times a hut is to be seen ensconced in a 
corner of one of them. 

OFTEN IMPEDE NAVIGATION. 

Navigation is often impeded by their 
accumulation. The River Angara, which 
runs out of Lake Baikal, has many islands 
floating on the bosom of its rapid current. 
Some are wooded, others low and tree¬ 
less, like green blotches on the surface 
of the stream. On Lake Dal, in the Vale 
of Kashmir, are floating islands moored 
to the bottom by stakes. Other lakes 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


569 


also have their floating islands. Hum¬ 
boldt, indeed, remarks that they are to 
be met with in all zones. Darwin saw 
them in Chile during the memorable voy¬ 
age of the Beagle. Lake Tagua-Tagua, 
for example, is noted for its floating 
islands. They are formed of the entwined 
stalks of dead plants, among which living 
vegetation takes root. They are circular 
in form, and from four to six feet thick. 
As the wind blows them about, these 
islands frequently pass from one side of 
the lake to another. Horses and cattle 
are thus sometimes carried across the 
lake—a unique kind of ferryboat is seen 
in action. 

On the broad waters of the Ganges, 
Amazon, Congo and Orinoco, islands of 
matted trees float down and put forth on 
a perilous voyage over the ocean. 

MISSISSIPPI CONTAINS ISLETS. 

The Mississippi, “Father of Waters,’ 
bears such green islets on its bosom. On 
one of them, perchance, young trees take 
root, and the pistia and nuphar adorn it 
with their yellow flowers. Alligators, 
serpents, and birds seek the shelter of its 
seclusion. But they have embarked on a 
voyage from which there is no return. 
They are carried out to sea and finally 
perish when the island sinks water-logged 
to the bottom. Travelers ascending the 
Amazon in a canoe meet its floating is¬ 
lands going seawards. On one. perchance, 
a group of grave-looking storks regard in 
stony silence a party of chattering mon¬ 
keys. Another carries a flock of ducks 
and divers sitting by a party of squirrels; 
while a third floats down a crocodile and 
a tiger cat. When a party of four tigers 
was landed at Montevideo from one or 


more of these floating islands, the in¬ 
habitants were greatly alarmed. Wafted 
by the wind in its trees one of these is¬ 
lands may finally reach the shores of some 
uninhabited land, newly risen, it may be, 
from the deep. Its varied passengers 
alighting may colonize the new land, 
while its freight of seeds may spring up 
to cover it with vegetation. Many curi¬ 
ous and anomalous facts in the distribu¬ 
tion of plant and animal life, to account 
for which naturalists have been lavish in 
their creation of continents, may perhaps 
be more simply explained in this way. In 
other cases the floating island of matted 
timber may sink water-logged to the bot¬ 
tom, and help to form a seam of coal. 

INTERESTING TO GEOLOGISTS. 

The floating island is an object of in¬ 
terest to the geologist, and has been duly 
chronicled in Sir Charles Lyell's “Prin¬ 
ciples." The most notable example in 
this country is the well-known floating 
island of Derwentwater. And it is a spe¬ 
cially remarkable one. A stranger, in¬ 
deed, “did never float upon the swelling 
tide. It is only visible at irregular in¬ 
tervals, and this is, perhaps, the most 
curious point in its history. Every now 
and then it puts in an appearance, and 
then vanishes again for a space of from 
one to five years. A hot summer seems 
to favor its appearance, and its favorite 
months are July, August and September. 
It floats, but at the same time remains at¬ 
tached to the bottom by its sides. Hence 
it is unable to travel over the lake as 
some other floating islands do. The ex¬ 
planation of this curious and erratic spec¬ 
imen is probably as follows: At the bot¬ 
tom of the lake is a felted mass of vegeta- 



570 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ble matter in a state of decay. The re¬ 
sulting gases inflate a part of the mass 
and raise it to the surface. The floating 
island of Derwentwater, in fact, is a large 
bubble, of which the skin is matted veg¬ 
etation, rising from the bottom of the 
lake. As the gas gradually escapes, it 
sinks again to the bottom. 

ISLANDS THAT RISE AND DIS¬ 
APPEAR. 

Islands that pop up unexpectedly are 
impelled to such doings by volcanic dis¬ 
turbances under the sea. Off our own 
shores, in the neighborhood of the Aleu¬ 
tian chain, a remarkable phenomenon of 
this kind has been under observation for 
a long time. Two lofty mountains, called 
Bogislof and Grewingk, have lifted them¬ 
selves out of the ocean, and having slowly 
grown to great size, now are gradually 
disappearing. It is evident that before 
long they will vanish altogether, and only 
a blank expanse of ocean will remain 
where once they loomed gigantic in the 
pathway of ships. 

The history of these two islands is well- 
known, though it covers more than a cen¬ 
tury. In 1778 Captain Cook, the famous 
navigator, sailed directly over the place 
they now occupy, and nothing was there; 
but on May 1, 1796, something happened. 
A great darkness fell upon the Aleutian 
chain, and in the midst of it a mighty 
fire rose out of the ocean with a terrific 
roaring sound. Stones were hurled as 
far as Umnak, thirty miles distant, where 
severe earthquakes were felt. At sun¬ 
rise on the following day the quakes 
ceased, and the flames diminished. The 
mists cleared away, and it was. seen that 
a new island, still smoking, had made its 


appearance, black in color, and in shape 
like a pointed cup. 

The island grew steadily both in 
height and circumference, until at length 
it was three miles around and nearly five 
hundred feet high. It kept on smoking, 
and the sea in its vicinity seemed to be 
boiling hot. Nobody dared to approach 
it, however, and some venturesome sea- 
lion hunters who landed upon the rock 
eight years later, in 1804, found the 
ground so warm that they could not walk 
upon it. It then was observed that there 
were many small craters, from which 
quantities of stones were being thrown. 
Bogislof (as the Russians called the rock) 
is in much the same condition today as 
in 1804, except that it has cooled off 
somewhat and has diminished in size, 
owing to the disintegrating action of the 
elements. It now is not more than two- 
thirds its original height; but volumes of 
steam still are given off from fissures in 
its sides. 

In the summer of 1883 there was an¬ 
other convulsion, and shrouded in steam 
and fog another volcanic island was born, 
half a mile away. It was first seen by 
Captain Matthew Turner, on September 
27 in that year, and was active in erup¬ 
tion, throwing out masses of lava and 
ashes, and emitting volumes of smoke and 
steam from the apex and numerous fis¬ 
sures. Thus came into being the island 
of Grewingk, or New Bogislof, which for 
a long time was connected with old Bog¬ 
islof by a sort of isthmus of sand. The 
first landing upon it was made in May, 
1884, by the officers of the revenue 
steamer Corwin. It was found to be 
about eight hundred feet high, though 
since that time it has shrunk to less than 



REMARKABLE EVOLUTIONS IN NATURE 


571 


seven hundred feet. As late as 1890 the 
roar of the escaping steam from its cra¬ 
ters was so tremendous that all other 
sounds were drowned to the ears of any- 
body within a mile's distance. It still 
manifests symptoms of vigorous volcanic 
activity. 

Geologists 1 >elieve that thousands of 
years ago a crack in the earth's crust 


was opened under Bering Sea, and that 
lava poured forth, forming a submarine 
mountain. In 1796 a fresh eruption 
caused Bogislof to rear itself above the 
surface, and in 1883 another one produced 
Grewingk; but both of these rocks stand 
upon one great mound beneath the ocean 
and after awhile they too will disappear. 









BOOK VIII 


Extraordinary Affairs 


AND 


Conditions Among Mankind 


WITH THEIR 


INFLUENCE AND RESULTS UPON 
THE PRESENT PROGRESS 
OF CIVILIZATION 


A SURVEY OF THE ANOMALOUS AND ABNORMAL EX¬ 
PERIENCES OF MANKIND, WITH REFERENCE 
TO THEIR BEARING UPON THE 
CONDUCT OF LIFE 





Paying off old scores. Manchurian bandits attacking Russian officers. 
























p‘V 

AV* 

Extraordinary Affairs and Conditions 
Among Mankind ■ --^ 

r‘V 

A* 

1 _ 




THE JAPANESE. 


HE first Japanese quality to be 
recognized by the western 
world was taste. Mr. Kipling, 
traveling through Japan and 
with rough hands and muddy boots re¬ 
coiling before the Japanese merchant, 
apostrophized that merchant thus: 

“You are much too clean and refined 
for this life below and your house is un¬ 
fit for a man to live in till he has learned 
a lot of things which I have never been 
taught. I hate you because I feel inferior 
to you." 

The Japanese has a way of manicuring 
his nails before he goes into battle. He 
also has a way of writing poems like an 
Athenian while he is toughening his 
fibre by exposure to the weather like a 
Spartan. His gardens, his vases, all the 
things that make life an art and a pleasure 
in itself, have caused the western world 
to look with dubious but enlightened eyes 
at its jammed, crammed conservatories 
and at its profuse, tangled mantelpieces. 
Is it better for us that Japan should be 
able to teach us something or that we 
should have the glory of having no su¬ 
periors in anything? 

STUDY AND DESIRE FOR IM¬ 
PROVEMENT. 

“I have seen scores of persons with 
spectacles,” said Kipling, “whom it were 
base flatten- to call soldiers. Their officers 


were as miserable a set of men as Japan 
could furnish, spectacled, undersized, hol¬ 
low backed, and hump shouldered. They 
squeaked their word of command and 
had to trot by the side of their men to 
keep up with them." 

Where did those officers get their spec¬ 
tacles? Reading books which the officers 
who fought the Boers had never seen. 

The efficiency which is conquering 
Manchuria was based on a belief in 
knowledge. Did Germany have a labora¬ 
tory in which chemicals for commerce 
and for war were handled in a way not 
yet known in Japan? A Japanese en¬ 
rolled himself among the students of that 
laboratory. Did Chicago have a new 
method of canning beef? A Japanese 
with spectacles arrived on a sight seeing 
tour. 

Knowledge as a preliminary to action 
—the whole recent history of the Japanese 
shows their profound belief in this prin¬ 
ciple. 

COURAGE, PHYSICAL AND 
MORAL. 

When the western world had granted 
the Japanese taste and knowledge it still 
hesitated to grant them courage. 

“I would give a good deal.” said Mr. 
Kipling, “to see them blooded on an 
equal number of our native (East Indian) 
infantry. If they have pluck, and there 



575 













































570 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


is not much in their past record to show 
that they have not, they ought to be first- 
class enemies. Under British officers, in¬ 
stead of the little anatomies at present 
provided, they should be as good as any 
troops recruited east of Suez.” 


do. And they probably construct no phil¬ 
osophical defense of suicide after cap¬ 
ture. They simply feel tumultously that 
they wish they were dead with their 
brothers in arms rather than alive among 
their enemies with food in their stomachs 



Japan Opens Its Doors to the World. 

Commodore Perry meets the Japanese Imperial Commissioners at Yokohama in 1853. “The 
rudimentary treaty he made was little more than a covenant to supply wood 
and water to needy ships, and to be merciful to their crews.” 


Criticism now runs the other way. The 
Japanese are reproached for wanting to 
die. They don't care about their wives 
and children. They set no more value 
on life than savages. They charge ma¬ 
chine guns like fanatics, and when they 
are captured they beat out their brains 
against stone walls like children. They 


It is a feeling worth a few suicides to any 
nation. 

SURRENDER OF SELF TO COUN¬ 
TRY. 

This is after all the supreme Japanese 
characteristic. 

There are Japanese who went to Eur- 













EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


O 4 4 


ope, studied in the European laboratories, 
laid the foundation of extensive personal 
reputations, and are now working in the 
Japanese government laboratories with no 
more glory than if they were labeled Xo. 
126 or Xo. 253. 

Love, as well as ambition, yields to 
patriotism. The Japanese wives love 
their husbands. But they love Japan 
more. So when their husbands are con- 


because it is their virtues that will raise 
them and raise the world. 

If the Japanese were uncouth, igno¬ 
rant, cowardly, and unpatriotic there 
would be no talk about the yellow peril, 
and the western world would be invited 
to repose on the lotus bed of superiority. 
As things are. the western world is invit¬ 
ed to resent the proved fact that the 
Japanese have taste, knowledge, courage. 



.»< - --— *»**"^ * 


Japan Opens the Door to Great Britain— 1858. 

The interview between the Earl of Elgin and the Prime Ministers of Japan. “He hastened 
the entry of the Land of the Rising Sun into the family of nations." 


scripted they put out flags and are envied 
by their neighbors. 

It is a law of the biological world that 
disconnected cells are lower than organ¬ 
isms in which a multitude of cells are 
subordinated to an inclusive whole. The 
empire of Japan is such an organism. The 
Japanese is a mere cell. And in being a 
mere cell he attains higher than if he 
lived to himself. 

THE LESSON TO THE WORLD. 

The Tapanese have their faults. Only 
their virtues have been mentioned here, 


and love of country to so preeminent a 
degree as to make us feel uncomfortable. 
We ought to be grateful to the Japanese 
for making us feel uncomfortable. The 
manifest destiny of the yellow peril is not 
to subdue the western world, but to im¬ 
prove it. Thank heaven there is one more 
nation worthy to share the burden of this 
planet's future! 

The Japanese have learned from 11s. If 
we are as wise as they we can learn some 
things from them. Taste, knowledge, 
courage, patriotism—are not the Japanese 
sending an electric current through the 























578 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


nerves that nourish these things in the 
bosom of every man in Europe and in 
America ? 

THEIR HOME LIFE. 

“Queer Things About Japan” gives this 
accurate account of its home life: “The 
Japanese have no bread, no beds, no fires, 
no boots and shoes, no trousers for the 
men, no petticoats for the women, both 
sexes wearing instead several dressing 
gowns one over the other. In their houses 
they have no windows, no doors, no walls, 
no ceilings, no chests of drawers, not even 
a washing-stand, and the wardrobe is 
only a lot of boxes piled one on top of an¬ 
other. In the kitchen they have no range, 
no pots, no pans, no flour-bins, no kitchen 
tables. 

“But then, they have no tables or chairs 
in the drawing-room, and in the real na¬ 
tive house the drawing-room itself is only 
a lot of bedrooms with their walls taken 
down. There is no reason why you 
should find anything in a Japanese house 
except mats and a charcoal brazier, for 
warming your fingers and the teapot, and 
committing suicide. These and a cushion 
or two, and a quilt to sleep on, with an 
elaborate conventional politeness, consti¬ 
tute the furniture of a Japanese house, ex¬ 
cept the guest chamber. The articles in 
the guest chamber consist of a screen, a 
kakemone, and a flower vase. 

“The Japanese have no forks, no 
spoons, no tablecloths; they have no 
sheets, no wineglasses, no tumblers. The 
Japanese young lady carries in her sleeve 
a pocket handkerchief, which is generally 
made of paper, a gaudy silk case contain¬ 
ing her chopsticks—you take your feed¬ 


ing tools with you to a Japanese meal in¬ 
stead of finding them on the table—and 
another gaudy silk case containing a 
looking-glass, which is not made of glass 
at all, but of silvered bronze, her pocket- 
comb, which is of no use, but a piece of 
foreign swagger, and her pot of lip-salve, 
which is not intended to soften the lips, 
since kissing is not a Japanese custom, 
but to color them to 1 improbable crimson. 

“She may keep her fan and her smok¬ 
ing materials in her sleeve, but she more 
often has them suspended from buttons. 
The Japanese do not use buttons for but¬ 
toning; they stick them through their 
sashes and let them hang down by silver 
chains or silken cords, to the other end of 
which they attach their fans, their smok¬ 
ing outfits, their medicine chests, and their 
pen and ink. 

“They carry their tobacco in a purse, 
and smoke it in a little brass pipe hardly 
big enough to hold a cigarette.” 

OTHER PECULIARITIES. 

He mounts his horse on the right side, 
and, when he stables him, backs him in 
tail first and feeds him from a tub at the 
stable door. He hauls his boat on the 
beach stern first; he prints his books with 
the footnotes at the top of the page, and 
the word “finis” where we put the title 
page. In addressing his letters he puts 
the name last and the town or country 
first; he says “east-north” and “west- 
south” where we say “north-east” and 
“south-west"; his keys turn in instead of 
out; he drinks his wine before and not 
after his dinner; and when he wants to 
be specially polite he removes, not his 
head-covering, but that of his feet. 






EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


5?y 


THEIR MORAL IDEAS. 

It has been stated that the Japanese 
have no morals, but this is quite untrue. 
They have no moral ideals, so cherished 
bv western civilization. The beautv of 

w * 

the moral principle—right for right's 
sake—is quite incomprehensible to the 
Japanese mind. In the Japanese phi¬ 
losophy it is right to do anything which 
is wise, and wrong to do anything which 
is foolish; beyond this there is r.o right 
or wrong, good or bad. 

In business the Japanese is honest when 
honesty is the best policy, and dishonest 
whenever it seems advisable. The mer¬ 
chant who does not take advantage of an 
opportunity to cheat by giving short 
weight or substituting an inferior quality 
of goods considers himself a fool. The 
man who does not break his plighted 
word if it is advantageous for him to do 
so is stricken by his philosophic con¬ 
science. I do not think that there is a 
foreigner doing business in Japan who 
will not bear testimony to these facts, 
which are freely admitted by the Japanese 
among themselves, although they will be 
indignantly denied as a matter of policy 
bv Japanese abroad. Foreign firms doing 
business in Japan have always experi¬ 
enced the greatest difficulty in preventing 
their Tapanese employees from defraud¬ 
ing them bv secretlv exacting a commis- 
sion from the native merchants with 
whom they transact business. It is a 
matter of common knowledge that the 
native “bantos" or head men of the oldest 
foreign firms have enriched themselves 
by the fraudulent practice of charging a 
secret commission or "kosen in all deal¬ 
ings with native merchants. Many of 

o 

these “bantos" have amassed millions by 


their dishonest methods, and the business 
of the foreign firms that employed them 
has practically passed into their hands, 
the foreign partners in those firms being 
mere salaried employees of the Japanese 
"banto." It is a fact that this is the con¬ 
dition of one of the principal American 
export houses in Japan today. Dishon¬ 
est collusion between the native merchant 
and the “banto” has wrecked manv a for- 
eign firm in Japan. 

PERSONAL CHASTITY. 

To the Japanese mind personal chas¬ 
tity is a matter of no importance except 
in the wife and mother. This attitude is 
consistent with the inborn philosophy 
that dominates the Japanese character. 
The interests of the home and posterity 
make it necessary that the wife should be 
virtuous, and in justice to the Japanese 
wife it must be said that she is a model of 
virtue. If the husband can find happiness 
in being a libertine, or in keeping a num¬ 
ber of concubines, it is considered right 
for him to do so. It is only when the 
husband squanders more than he can af¬ 
ford in riotous living that he is consid¬ 
ered to be doing wrong. The principle 
upon which a libertine husband is con¬ 
demned in Japan is purely a material one 
and not a moral one. A young girl may 
be bonded to a brothel, a geisha company, 
or placed as a concubine by her family, if 
financial reasons make it advisable, and 
to the Japanese mind it is perfectly 
proper. The Buddhist doctrine of self- 
sacrifice upholds the girl who sells herself 
for the sake of her parents, and although 
she becomes for the time being an out¬ 
cast from society, she is esteemed for her 
act. It often happens that a well-to-do 



580 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Japanese man buys a girl out of the Yosh- 
iwara, and if she becomes his wife she 
finds no difficulty in establishing herself 
in society. 

Suicide has always been considered 
honorable in Japan, the wish to die being 
considered sufficient justification for the 
act. No moral principle against suicide 
is apparent to the Japanese mind. In 
past generations the samurai code pre¬ 
scribed suicide if it was impossible to live 
with honor. The passing of the samurai 
has not witnessed the elimination of his 
fantastic theories concerning suicide in 
Japan. The cause of suicide in Japan is 
almost invariably dishonor. To the 
Japanese mind there is no sin but folly, 
no ideals to be realized but material and 
patriotic ones. 

IDEAL OF A PERFECT WOMAN. 

Kesa filled the eighteen requirements 
of a beautiful woman. Moreover, she was 
peerless in character as well. Before her 
and her lover-husband, Wataru, life 
seemingly stretched a long, happy road. 
Unfortunately they fell in debt to Morito, 
a neighboring samurai, whose evil eye fell 
upon Kesa, and he coveted her with all 
his soul. He wished Kesa for his wife, 
but while Wataru lived this could not he 
with honor. But an enemy’s life was but 
a small hindrance—one stroke of the keen 
samurai sword and Kesa could be free. 
So Morito reasoned, and pressed this 
plan upon Ivesa's old mother, who in turn 
pleaded with her daughter, till Kesa 
found herself between two fires, filial 
versus conjugal love and duty. 

At last after bitter weeping she con¬ 
sented and plans were laid. On a certain 
night Wataru would return from a jour¬ 


ney and after his bath would lie down on 
his own pallet among the sleeping ones 
in the family hall. Morito could easily 
find him, for his hair would be wet from 
the bath. 

On the appointed night Morito .crept 
through the hall, lit only by the andon’s 
dim light. He found Wataru’s place; his 
hair was wet and his face muffled in the 
covering. Hasily he spread down a nap¬ 
kin by the pillow, then with one sharp, 
swift stroke of his sword severed the 
sleeper’s head. Gathering it up in the 
napkin he fled. There was no pursuit, and 
when he had gained his own room in 
safety he sat down to gloat over his prize. 
As he turned the head to get a good view 
the sight froze him with horror, for it 
was the sweet, piteous face of Kesa. She 
had sent her husband far from harm, cut 
off her hair and prepared it to imitate his 
and meekly lay down to die that she 
might be true to both ties—dying, she 
fulfilled her duties as a filial daughter and 
a faithful wife. In those stern and cruel 
times many women had done excellently, 
but Kesa outshone them all. 

JIU-JITSU, THE ART OF GENTLE 
CONTROL. 

Jiu-jitsu, or “the art of gentle control,” 
is by no means to be confounded with an 
ordinary form of wrestling or mere feat 
of strength. This art, which is the result 
of study and practice during the feudal 
regime that prevailed in Japan for nearly 
800 years, is a peculiar method of weapon¬ 
less defense and offense, embracing an ex¬ 
tensive field and involving profound prin¬ 
ciples. Jiu-jitsu, in its practical aspect, 
constitutes not only a warfare, a system 
of physical training or athletic sport, but 





EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


581 


an ethical culture which amounts almost 
to a practical philosophy. Under the 
feudal regime the most rigorous moral 
system, unsurpassed even by that of the 
Stoic school, was enforced upon, and 
gradually accepted by, the Samurai, the 
military retainers of the feudal clans, who 
found in jiu-jitsu the most efficacious 
means of defense against an unwarranted 
assault upon both their body and their 
honor. 

These ancient Japanese warriors car¬ 
ried with them two swords, keen-edged, 
formidable weapons, which they prized 
highly as “the soul of the Samurai”; but 
it was considered unbefitting their rank 
and dignity to unsheathe them at an un¬ 
worthy assailant. The code of honor of 
the Samurai required of them to dispel a 
villain’s attack, even an armed one, with¬ 
out weapon; and thus it came that jiu- 
jitsu was used as a means of punishment 
and defense. 

WEAPONLESS WARFARE. 

That this peculiar Japanese method of 
weaponless warfare was originally intend¬ 
ed as a defense rather than offense be¬ 
comes clear when one considers that it 
generally gives the advantage to the sec¬ 
onder over the initiate in a contest—so 
it is that in almost all the forms of jiu- 
jitsu contest it is the beginner who gets 
the worst. The moral feature of jiu-jitsu 
is shown by the fact that it leads the de¬ 
feated contestant to a state of complete 
control without inflicting any injury. 
The punishment thus inflicted is termed 
“submission,” that is, a position of utter 
helplessness, from which the victim is un¬ 
able to regain power even at the risk of 


life or limb, the only alternative left to 
him being in his opponent's mercy. 

In an actual case, where one's life or 
death is concerned, this “submission” 
process may be carried to the extreme, 
ending in a permanent injury or death. 
Otherwise, the pain imparted and the fa¬ 
tality threatened by the process serve to 
force a prompt surrender. The holds for 
this final act in a jiu-jitsu contest are so 
taken as to give the greatest effect with 
the least possible exertion, that is to say, 
in it the well-known mechanical principle 
of the lever is exemplified. It will be 
readily seen that one who exacts a “sub¬ 
mission" needs not be necessarily a pow¬ 
erful man. Indeed, he can bring under 
his control an opponent of far superior 
strength. 

The efficiency of jiu-jitsu in actual 
combats or as a means of self-defense 
needs scarcely be emphasized; but to the 
credit of the experts in this art it may be 
noted that they have proved superior to 
all professed to have attained in other 
crafts, even that which resorts to weap¬ 
ons. Many cases are on record in Japan 
in which an accomplished jiu-jitsu Sa¬ 
murai dispelled a sword attack delivered 
from the hands of a skilled fencer. 

VITAL TOUCHES. 

Jiu-jitsu has a “weapon" in the form 
of ate-mi, or “vital touches,” which may 
he administered with the thumb, the 
clenched hand, the elbows, the toes, the 
edge of the hand, or even with the head. 
The effects of these “touches” range from 
a temporary paralysis of the arm to the 
complete suspension of vital processes 
and instant death. The methods of deal¬ 
ing these fatal acts have been kept se- 



5S2 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 



Japanese officer entering Pingyang, riding an ox led by a soldier. 


body is seldom disclosed to the disciples. 
The use of the “vital touches” is prohib¬ 
ited, except where one's life or death 
question is involved, and even then a 
morally trained jiu-jitsian would consider 
it beneath his dignity to resort to them 


the victim when the “vital touch” is dealt 
upon; for the “secret” part also includes 
the methods of recalling him to life. 
Katsu, or “vivification,” is imparted to 
the students at the same time they are 
given the dangerous “secrets.” It con- 


cret, and even today it is only after thor¬ 
oughly ascertaining disciples' moral char¬ 
acter that the instructor imparts to them 
these dangerous “secrets.’’ The location 
of the “death points” upon the human 


unless attacked simultaneously by several 
of the enemies. 

MORAL SELF-DEFENSE. 

The moral aspect of jiu-jitsu is again 
shown in the humane treatment given to 


2 













EXTRAORDIXARY AFFAIRS AXD COXDITIOXS 


5 S 3 


sists in the administration of an act with¬ 
out the assistance of any object or per¬ 
son other than the hands of the one who 
dealt the fatal ‘‘touch.” This restorative 
act, of course, implies a profound physio¬ 
logical and anatomical knowledge. 

As to the effectiveness of this jiu-jitsu 
treatment, the claim may be advanced 
that not only the victim of the “vital 
touches.” but those of untimely accidents 
who suffer in a similar manner and who 
might otherwise be abandoned as beyond 
human help, may be successfully treated 
by the “vivification" methods, provided 
they have not received permanent in¬ 
juries to the vital organs. The apparent 
death caused by strangling, for instance, 
may be treated without much difficulty by 
a jiu-jitsian of average skill, and the 
chance is that ninety-nine out of every 
hundred may regain life otherwise given 
up. Of all the forms of apparent death 
caused by the administration of the “vital 
touches,” that which is induced by carry¬ 
ing the strangling, or “neck wringing 
hold to the extreme, is easiest to be “vivi¬ 
fied” and with the certainty of leaving no 
trace of permanent injury. This process, 
therefore, is generally employed in giving 
demonstration of “vivification. 

A PECULIAR FEATURE. 

The most peculiar feature of jiu-jitsu 
is perhaps the fact that in it the physical 
strength is least considered. Although 
the possession of strength is not a disad¬ 
vantage. the striving too hard, especially 
by the beginner, is to be avoided. In jiu- 
jitsu the secret is “to turn the opponent's 
exertion into one s own advantage. This 
is the obvious result of the application of 
mechanical laws and strategic means. 


The reason why jiu-jitsu enables “the 
weaker to overcome the stronger" is, of 
course, given by the application of the 
mechanical laws and strategies. But this 
is not all. For it was chieflv by the de- 
velopment of the art of nori, literally 
“riding." that this result has been as¬ 
sured. Xori is the way of “tumbling" 
or landing the body when it is tossed or 
thrown. In short, it is the “way to be 
defeated.” The methods of jiu-jitsu com¬ 
bats into which this nori is introduced 
are called sutemi-waza, that is, the means 
by which one can win by “giving himself 
up." In other words, sutemi-waza is the 
method of achieving ultimate victory by 
inviting an initial defeat. It is one of the 
most formidable means known in jiu- 
jitsu: and it may be asserted without re¬ 
serve that one may apply this means with 
an opponent twice his strength and 
promptly bring the opponent to the 
ground. 

In regard to physical training, jiu- 
jitsu has a unique advantage, since it may 
be practiced by all persons, regardless of 
sex. both old and young, strong and 
weak. Xo such exertion as invariably re¬ 
quired by an ordinary feat of strength is 
called for in jiu-jitsu; nor does it necessi¬ 
tate such violent exercise as to injure 
those having the tendency of heart dis¬ 
ease. provided one chooses one's equal for 
an opponent. 

Jiu-jitsu is adapted for all those who 
desire to have a strong, healthy body, 
coupled with a vigorous, sound mind, 
and. above all. that agility of movement 
and keenness of senses which enables a 
person to protect himself in face of dan¬ 
ger generally. 



584 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


A REMARKABLE EXERCISE 
OF SKILL. 

As sport, jiu-jitsu is unsurpassed by 
anything else. Not counting the pleas¬ 
ure that ensues from the spirit of rivalry, 
the contest does not cause fatigue and is 
perfectly safe, provided no dangerous 
“vital touches” are permitted. In a for¬ 
mal contest it is no humiliation to meet 
a toss or throw or to be brought to a 
“submission” position. A toss or throw 
is often invited on the part of contestant 


may be recommended. This exercise 
may be taken up alone. It is to fall the 
body on the floor in any manner and in a 
position enabling the limbs to be used 
most readily for striking the floor. The 
feature in this exercise lies in the skill 
required for creating a reaction or re¬ 
bounding from the floor as one falls, thus 
counteracting the impact of the fall and 
saving the body from the shock. This is 
easily learned by practice. Tbe striking 
on the floor is to be done with the hands 



War galley of Japan in 1848. 


in order to release himself from a disad¬ 
vantageous grapple, and it does not al¬ 
ways decide a contest. When brought to 
a “submission” position, prompt surren¬ 
der will bring no harm. The customary 
signal for “submission” is given by 
knocking with the free hand on some por¬ 
tion of the opponent's body or on the 
floor, and when the signal is given it is 
to be made a strict rule that the opponent 
should at once release the holds. 

For pleasure, as well as for jiu-jitsu 
practice, nori, or the “tumbling” exercise. 


or feet at the moment the main part of 
the body is about to touch the floor. 

SUICIDE IN PREFERENCE TO 
CAPTURE OR DISHONOR. 

Prince Jaime of Bourbon, son of Don 
Carlos of Spain, who is serving under 
the Muscovite flag in Manchuria, relates 
in a letter recently received that after one 
of the attempts to bottle up Port Arthur, 
when he steamed out in a launch to rescue 
several Japanese who were clinging to 
the rigging of the fireships sunk in the 



















EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


585 


roadstead, the men one after another blew 
out their brains with their revolvers, or 
ripped open their stomachs with their 
knives, throwing themselves into the sea 
rather than permit themselves to be taken 
prisoners. In the graphic accounts of the 
sinking of the Japanese transport Kin- 
shiu Maru, on April 25. oft" the Corean 
coast by the Vladivostok squadron, it is 
related how the troops on board, several 
hundred in number, having refused to 
surrender, and having resisted with ride 
fire an attempt to hoard the ship, com¬ 
mitted suicide while the vessel was being 
torpedoed. 

The officers and a number of the men 
who belonged to the Sumurai class de¬ 
stroyed themselves by means of hara-kiri, 
that is, by cutting the stomach open with 
their swords or knives, while the others, 
presumably of a lower order in the social 
scale, either blew out their brains with 
their rides or shot one another. This 
took place on deck in full view of the 
Russian fieet. and it was not until a third 
torpedo had been fired that the sinking 
of the Kinshiu Maru put an end to the ex¬ 
traordinary scene. Several of the sol¬ 
diers who had been plunged into the sea 
by the foundering of the vessel, not hav¬ 
ing had time to kill themselves, were 
dragged on board a boat on w hich the 
English officers of the transport had 
sought refuge, and as no attempt was 
made by the Russians to molest them, 
they reached land in safety. As soon as 
possible they notified the military authori-. 
ties at Gensan of the fate of the transport 
and asked permission, now that they had 
accomplished the duty imposed upon them 
of supplying information, to follow the 
example of their comrades and to destroy 


themselves, declaring that all the troops 
on board, when they found their ship 
surrounded by the Russian fleet, had 
taken a solemn pledge to kill themselves. 

TROOPSHIP CAPTURED BY RUS¬ 
SIANS. 

The story of the death of the troops 
and of their officers on board the Kinshiu 
Maru sent a thrill of admiration through¬ 
out the entire Japanese nation, served to 
give a timely inspiration to the army in 



War galley of Japan in i860, 
the field, and was construed as a silent 
but eloquent assurance that Japan could 
trust her honor to the keeping of her sol¬ 
diers. It was felt that they had rendered 
a service to their country by the national 
spirit shown in the manner of their death. 
—the death by hara-kiri, which the 
princes, great nobles and Samurai of 
Japan have, for eight hundred years and 
more, preferred to dishonor. Some years 
ago a project was brought forward in the 
legislature of Tokio advocating the abo¬ 
lition of the practice of hara-kiri, or sep¬ 
puku, as it is more commonly called in 
Japan. In the debate which followed it 









586 


BOOK Ob THE TIMES 


was described as “the very shrine of the 
national spirit and the embodiment in 
practice of devotion to principle," as “a 
pillar of the constitution,” as “a pillar of 
religion and a spur to virtue,” and as “one 
of our most valuable and time honored 
institutions,” and the motion was de¬ 
feated by the overwhelming vote of 205 
to 3. Ono Seigoro, who proposed the 
measure, was murdered not long after¬ 
ward. 

Hara-kiri may not be in consonance 
with our Western ideas. Indeed, the sur¬ 
vival of this form of self-destruction in 
Japan serves to remind us of the fact 
which we are so often tempted to forget 
—namely, that between the Orient and 
the Occident there is a great and deep 
gulf, and that whereas we belong to the 
Occident the Japanese will always remain 
Asiatics, no matter how many of our 
ways they may adopt. Hara-kiri is not a 
pleasant custom, and by many it will be 
denounced as savoring of barbarism. And 
yet, underlying this particularly ghastly 
method of suicide, there is an underlying 
ideal of chivalry and of honor, without 
which the world would be poorer. 

PRESERVING HONOR BY 
SUICIDE. 

The notion that it is possible to pre¬ 
serve by means of suicide honor that 


would otherwise be forfeited is, however, 
by no means confined to Japan, though 
it ' is the only country in the world 
where hara-kiri prevails. Thus in China 
princes, great nobles and mandarins of 
the highest rank, if they are considered 
by the Empress Dowager as meriting 
death, are permitted to put an end to 
their lives by means of strangulation or 
poison, thus escaping the infamy of de¬ 
capitation. In Turkey and other Mo¬ 
hammedan countries dignitaries whose 
death is desired by their rulers are accus¬ 
tomed to receive from the latter, with 
much ceremony, the gift of a silken bow¬ 
string, to be used by them for the purpose 
of strangulation, and even on the Con¬ 
tinent of Europe the officer or noble when 
struck or otherwise insulted by his sov¬ 
ereign or by a prince of the blood, and 
who is debarred by the rank of his as¬ 
sailant from seeking satisfaction by means 
of a duel, is required by unwritten law 
to blow out his brains as the only way 
of preserving intact his honor. For a 
blow or an insult unavenged is consid¬ 
ered among the higher classes in most of 
the Continental countries of Europe as 
disqualifying a man from any further 
association with the people of his caste, 
and as entailing the most cruel species of 
ostracism. 


THE AWAKENING OF CHINA. 


The Chinese empire is beginning to 
wake up from its long sleep of the cen¬ 
turies. Inoculated, under protest, time 
and again with Western ideas, only to re¬ 
ject them violently, it is at last beginning 
to develop an unmistakable desire for 


closer trade relations with the great out¬ 
side world. 

One of the most significant signs is the 
manner in which the volume of its pur¬ 
chases from other nations has steadily in¬ 
creased. From inconsiderable dimensions 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS. AND CONDITIONS 


587 


ten years ago it reached last year the 
enormous total of $400,000,000. It is 
fair to assume that at the present rate of 
increase another decade will have seen 
this amount trebled, perhaps quadrupled. 
In population and natural resources the 
empire is vastly richer than Japan. Only 
the alertness and the enterprise has been 
lacking to make it overreach that little 
nation, which in 1902 enjoyed a foreign 
trade of $270,000,000. With the proper 
influences turned loose in China—and all 
indications point favorably in this direc¬ 
tion—it should soon overcome the big 
handicap held by its more strenuous 
neighbor. 

The realization of the vast trade pos¬ 
sibilities in awakened China is the animus 
of the persistent efforts of European pow¬ 
ers to partition the empire for the estab¬ 
lishment of “spheres of influence." Rus¬ 
sia, Germany, and France have been par¬ 
ticularly active in this respect, although 
the latter two had been compelled to re¬ 
sort to diplomacy in place of arms. Rus¬ 
sia has taken advantage of its close prox¬ 
imity and its intimidation of Chinese of¬ 
ficials to build the Siberian railroad and 
imperceptibly creep forward, inch by 
inch, in its occupation of Chinese terri¬ 
tory. It is probable that the European 
powers did not know the extent of Rus¬ 
sia's holdings in Corea and Manchuria 
until the sharp challenge of Japan pre¬ 
cipitated the present wan 

POLICY OF THE NATIONS. 

The “open door” policy, which has 
been consistently advocated by the L nited 
States government, sometimes assisted 
by Great Britain, is diametrically opposed 
to that of the “spheres of influence.” 


The latter contemplates that certain 
portions of the empire shall be abso¬ 
lutely allotted to certain nations, with an 
implied trade monopoly which may be en¬ 
forced by “policing” or any other method 
of coercion. The “open door” gives all 
nations free entrance into all parts of the 
empire, with an honest, impartial com¬ 
petition the only restraint to trade. Thus 
the commercial emissaries of the United 
States, Great Britain, France, Germany, 
Spain and other powers would be on an 
equal footing in every portion of the em¬ 
pire. Xo nation would have the privilege 
of cramming its products down the 
throats of the celestials within rigid geo¬ 
graphical divisions, irrespective of their 
quality or price in comparison with those 
of other countries. 

The merits only of the goods and sales¬ 
men would settle the success or failure of 
international commercial rivals. The 
manufacturers of the United States feel 
that their profits would be infinitely 
larger by the adoption of this liberal 
course than if they were given what may 
be vulgarly called a “cinch” or “graft" in 
a restricted Chinese territory. Knowl¬ 
edge of this sentiment has impelled our 
government to assume and maintain its 
firm stand for the “open door"—an atti¬ 
tude to which it compelled the European 
governments to subscribe, at least by im¬ 
plication, at the outbreak of the present 
far Eastern struggle. 

The Mikado’s advocacy of the “open 
door” is well understood and unequivo¬ 
cal. whereas the triumph of Russia would 
in all probability mean the enforcement 
of the greedy and unfair policy of 
“spheres of influence,” if not a sweeping 
Russian monopoly. 



588 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


THE YELLOW PERIL. 


The population of China proper, with¬ 
out counting Manchuria, Thibet, and 
Turkestan, is estimated at more than 420 
millions of inhabitants. A noted writer 
in Paris takes the startling view that this 
enormous mass would make first-rate raw 
material for an army, because the China¬ 
man is the same all over China. The dif¬ 
ference of dialects—of which so much 
has been made by other writers—ends, he 
says, at a comparatively short distance 
away from the sea. 

The Chinaman has an extraordinary 
vitality; he has a large family, partly, no 
doubt, because of the necessities of an¬ 
cestor-worship, and he lives to a great 
age. Moreover, the Chinaman prospers 
quite regardless of climate, whereas the 
Japanese, for instance, have found it dif¬ 
ficult to colonize Formosa because it is 
too hot, and Yesso because it is too cold. 
China is capable, therefore, of having an 
army stronger physically than those of all 
neighboring countries. The Chinese are 
splendid marchers, and get along very 
well on nothing but rice and tea. More- 
• over, the Chinaman has no nerves unless 
he is an opium smoker, and as this is 
rather an expensive vice, the classes 
which would supply recruits for the army 
are practically free from it. This absence 
of nerves not only simplifies the medical 
service, but also renders the Chinaman 
indifferent to personal comfort. It is not 
necessary to protect him from mosquitoes, 
from heat, or from cold, and he never 
forgets his drill when he has once learned 
it. Altogether he seems to be the most 
convenient soldier in the world, for he 
can sleep anywhere, and on anything, and 


at any time that it may be necessary for 
him to sleep. Public spirit and patriot¬ 
ism are practically unknown in China, 
though there have been of late years some 
symptoms of a change in that respect; 
the army, therefore, appears to the gen¬ 
eral mass of Chinamen to be a band of 
parasites which costs much and produces 
no effect. Fraud and dishonesty are very 
rife in all the public services of China, 
and it is usual for the dishonest to hide 
their embezzlements by arson. The Min¬ 
istry of Finance at Pekin regularly 
catches fire every two or three years. On 
the other hand, curiously enough, in com¬ 
merce the Chinese are rather remarkable 
for their probity. 

It follows from all this that a Chinese 
army could be raised which would be a 
most potent military force, if it was com¬ 
manded and led by officers who possessed 
the two gifts of imagination and ac¬ 
curacy, in which the Chinese are them¬ 
selves deficient. With such an army 
they would desire concessions and expan¬ 
sion for their teeming millions, and the 
end no one could foresee. 

OPINION OF THE METHODIST 
BISHOP OF TOKYO. 

I do not believe that there is any yel¬ 
low peril in Japan. 

Japan has thrown her lot, once for all, 
with occidental civilization and it is im¬ 
possible for her to go back. Four days 
before I left Japan the prime minister, 
Count Katsura, sent for me and said: 

“I hear you are going to America very 
soon, and as you have been living in 
Japan nearly twenty-five years and are 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


589 


acquainted with us and the many changes 
that have taken place in that time, I hope 
you will do what you can to correct one 
or two mistaken impressions that have 
appeared in American newspapers. One 
is the so-called ‘yellow peril.' " 

Count Katsura went on: “We are not 
of the same color as Americans and Eu¬ 
ropeans. We are as God made us, but 
our hearts are as white as those of Amer¬ 
icans and Europeans. 

“Four years ago, when the foreign 
diplomats and Chinese Christians were 
in danger at Pekin from the Boxers, the 
Japanese troops marched shoulder to 
shoulder with the soldiers of Europe and 
America to their relief. 

“Our educational system is based on 
that of America. Civil and religious lib¬ 
erties are guaranteed by the imperial con¬ 
stitution to all people living in Japan, 
whether natives or foreign. Many of 
our leading men in the army, the navy 
and in civil service are Christians. 

“There are thirteen Christian members 
in the imperial diet, and the speaker of 
the last house, elected by the diet, Katao- 
ka Kenkichi, was an earnest Christian 
man. There are. by the way, out of 370 
only thirteen of whom were Christians, 
and yet they elected this man their speak¬ 
er. and his election was confirmed by the 
emperor. There are also Christians 
among the judges; Christians among the 
professors in the Imperial university. 

“When war was declared some people 
thought it would be a war between pa¬ 
ganism and Christianity, and between 
white and yellow. 

“The prime minister and the minister 
for home affairs directed the leaders of 
Shintoism and Buddhism to instruct their 


followers that this was not a war of re¬ 
ligion or of race, and that as the con¬ 
stitution guaranteed religious liberty to 
all, not one should be interfered with be¬ 
cause of his belief.’’ 

NO RELIGIOUS ANTAGONISM. 

The bishop in the Russian church has 
been in Tokio ever since the beginning 
of the war and is as free and safe from 
personal injury as if he was in St. Peters¬ 
burg. 

I have visited since last February 
many towns, varying in distance from 
fifty to 600 miles from Tokio and have 
been treated with the same courtesy as 
is given me in Boston. 

There has been sympathy, confidence 
and friendship between Japan and Amer¬ 
ica for fifty years, forming a triple court 
which cannot easily be broken. It was 
the persistent, but kindly pressure of 
Commodore Perry which persuaded the 
Japanese to sign the treaty of 1854 which 
brought her into the committee of the 
nations of the west. 

I consider, therefore, that we, as 
Americans, have a great responsibility to 
the Japanese. It is acknowledged by the 
leading statesmen and educators in Japan 
that there has been a decided decadence 
in manners and morals among their peo¬ 
ple during the last forty years. The 
whole system of ethics has lost much of 
the power it formerly had and there is 
unquestioned decline in the power of 
Shintoism and Buddhism to impart a 
healthy moral tone to the rising genera¬ 
tions. 

Count Okuma, one of the greatest 
statesmen and educators of the day, and 
Marquis Ito, the late prime minister, who 




500 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


is sometimes called the father of the con¬ 
stitution of Japan, have both, in public 
utterances, asserted that if Japan is to 
retain her place among the nations of the 
world, a religion is necessary, and of all 
religions they estimate Christianity to be 
the best. That Christianity is necessary 
to sustain strength and purify the life of 
the nation. 

The total number of Christians of all 
denominations in Japan is less than 200,- 
000 in a population of 45,000,000, and 
yet the spiritual and moral influence is 
more than one hundred times its numeri¬ 
cal strength. 

The proportion of charitable, philan¬ 
thropic and educational institutions es¬ 
tablished by Christian missions and na¬ 
tive Christians in Japan is as three to one 
of those of Buddhism and Shintoism. 

The only college for the higher edu¬ 
cation of women in the empire was es¬ 
tablished less than five years ago by a 
Christian Japanese minister. 

A PLEA FOR CHRISTIANITY. 

Marquis Ito said a short time ago: 

“The only true civilization is that 
which rests on Christian principles, and, 
consequently, as Japan must attain her 
civilization on these principles those 
young men who receive Christian educa¬ 
tion will be the main factors in the de¬ 
velopment of future Japan.” 

Count Okuma, in an address to uni¬ 


versity students, used this very signifi¬ 
cant language: 

“We may say that, although as a na¬ 
tion Japan has benefited materially by 
the adoption of foreign methods and in¬ 
stitutions, our moral progress has been 
by no means satisfactory. In fact, it is 
a question whether as a people we have 
not lost moral fiber as a result of the 
many new influences to' which we have 
been subjected. The efforts which Chris¬ 
tians are making in applying to the coun¬ 
try a high standard of conduct are wel¬ 
comed by all right thinking people. 

“As you read the Bible you may think 
it antiquated, out of date. The words 
it contain may so appear, but the noble 
life which it holds up to admiration is 
something that never will be out of date, 
however more the world may progress. 
Live and preach this life and you will 
supply to the nation just what it needs at 
the present juncture.” 

A former member of the cabinet, 
speaking on this subject, said: 

“No matter how large an army or 
navy we may have, unless we have right¬ 
eousness at the foundation of our na¬ 
tional existence we shall fall short of suc¬ 
cess. I do not hesitate to say that we 
must rely on religion for our highest wel¬ 
fare, and when I look about me to' see 
upon what religion we can best rely I 
am convinced that the religion of Christ 
is the one most full of strength and prom¬ 
ise for the nation.” 


RELIGIONS OF RUSSIA. 

According to the latest available sta- 150,000 Mohammedans, 6,750,000 Prot- 
tistics, there are in Russia, in round num- estants, 4,050,000 Jews, 1,350,000 Uni- 
bers, 95,850,000 orthodox Greek Catho- ted Church and Armenians, and 2.700.- 
lics, 12,150,000 Roman Catholics, 12,- 000 followers of other faiths. Contrary 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


591 


to the usual understanding of the Russian 
situation, there has been no law requiring 
conformity to the orthodox belief, with 
the exception of the restraints laid on the 
Jews. The persecution that has been lev¬ 
eled at the dissenters has been as a rule 
the work of the local officials, although 
the holy synod has not been entirely in¬ 
nocent in this regard. The affairs of the 
Roman Catholic Church are entrusted to 
a collegium and those of the Lutheran 
church to a consistory, both settled at 
St. Petersburg. Roman Catholics are 
most numerous in the former Polish 
provinces, Lutherans in those of the Bal- 

THE ICONS 

The universal use of the icon in Russia 
xS almost beyond belief. That the walls 
of the churches are covered with them 
goes without saying; that there is at least 
one in every house we know; but of the 
thousands upon thousands of portable 
ones, usually made of metal an inch and 
a half to two inches square, carried about 
by soldiers, sailors, and peasants and peo¬ 
ple of all conditions, who take journeys, 
there is no accurate account. 

Rudely cut and crudely painted pic¬ 
tures are set in wayside shrines along the 
length of the railways, and it fills the Oc¬ 
cidental traveler with curiosity to see the 
Russian tourists pour out of the train at 
a solitary station and move in solemn pro¬ 
cession to say their prayers on bended 
knee before some little shrine. 

Occasionally on the Trans-Siberian 
Railway one meets an altar car, which is 
built like an ordinary coach without 
seats. One end contains the altar, before 
which candelabra are placed for the wor- 


tic, and Mohammedans in eastern and 
southern Russia, while the Jews are al¬ 
most entirely settled in the. towns and 
larger villages of the western and south¬ 
western provinces. 

In the orthodox church the Czar is the 
supreme head, with power to appoint to 
every office in the church, and to transfer 
and remove incumbents, limited only by 
the right of the bishops and prelates to 
propose candidates. Practically, how¬ 
ever, the procurator of the holy synod, 
the ecclesiastical bureau of the govern¬ 
ment, has usurped many of the Czar’s 
powers in church matters. 

OF RUSSIA. 

shipper’s candles, which he has either 
brought with him or bought at a near-by 
shop. The walls of the car are covered 
with icons, while a large one hangs above 
the altar. Here the worshippers pros¬ 
trate themselves and often kiss the ven¬ 
erated token. The car is moved from 
place to place at stated intervals, as occa¬ 
sion seems to demand. 

In the living room of every house and 
hut as well as in every cathedral in Rus¬ 
sia there is to be found at least one icon 
or sacred picture of Christ, the Virgin, or 
some saint or martyr; in most private 
houses there are several, and in the cathe¬ 
drals there are hundreds; but however 
many the individual may own, there is 
always to be found one token of this kind 
hanging across the northeast corner of 
the room, near the ceiling. Before it is 
suspended a tiny metal lamp of filigree 
and colored glass, in which the light is 
never allowed to go out. 

It is a sort of shrine to which each 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


50‘2 


member of the family comes morning and 
evening to say his prayers. Visitors make 
their way to it to pay their devotions and 
call down blessings upon the house before 
they go to greet host and hostess. 

ORIGIN OF SYMBOLISM. 

The story of the origin, history, and 
symbolism of these pictures is curious, 
eventful, and wondrously interesting. 
The dictionary definition of an icon is, as 
any one may read, “an image or likeness 
in the Greek Church, mosaic or the like, 
especially one representing Christ or the 
Virgin or some saint or martyr, common¬ 
ly regarded as miraculous either in its 
origin or power.” 

The dispatches in the daily papers told 
us not long ago that the most sacred 
image in Russia had been sent from the 
Traitzke Monastery to St. Petersburg, 
and that later it would accompany the 
Czar’s army to the far East, in the belief 
that through its agency victory would 
perch on Russian banners. 

This “most sacred image” is a repre¬ 
sentation of the Virgin appearing to St. 
Sergius. It is about a foot square and 
covered with precious stones—votive of¬ 
ferings. It is set in a handsome box 
frame, which is also set with valuable 
gems. 

This icon has had a remarkable his¬ 
tory. It has led a peripatetic life for 
many decades. It accompanied Alexis, 
Peter the Great, and Alexander I on all 
their campaigns. A silver tablet is at¬ 
tached to it enumerating the battles at 
which it has been present. 

The Czar sent a letter to the Metropoli¬ 
tan of the Greek Church, who had the 


picture in charge, in which he recalled 
the overthrow of the Tartar hordes un¬ 
der its auspices, and recorded his belief 
that if it were with the army the Russians 
would in a like manner overthrow the 
Japanese. 

The day before General Kuropatkin 
left St. Petersburg for the East he visited 
the cathedral to perform the most solemn 
rites of his Church. The Patriarch 
blessed him and held aloft the image of 
St. Sergius and the Virgin for adoration. 

IMAGES USED AS CHARMS. 

Vice Admiral Skrydloff carries with 
him several of the sacred images which 
were presented to him the day he left St. 
Petersburg. A peasant dressed in the 
skins of wild beasts separated himself 
from the crowd and handed the Admiral 
an image of “The Holy Virgin of Joy to 
the Afflicted,” which is reputed to have 
miraculous power. St. Theodosius, the 
miracle-worker of Czermakoff, was next 
given him. 

St. Seraphim is a modern icon. The 
saint lived and died in the 19th century, 
and received his canonization from the 
Czar only last year. He is enshrined as 
a miracle-worker in the church of Saroff, 
and thousands of people of all classes are 
making pilgrimages to the church for the 
purpose of offering up their petitions in 
behalf of their friends and relatives in the 
army. 

The largest manufactories are at Mos¬ 
cow and Vladimir. In the latter province 
the entire population is engaged during 
the winter in the manufacture of the 
sacred pictures. Every week during the 
season great fairs are held, where hun¬ 
dreds of cartloads of lumber are bought 





r 



Gen. Kuropatkin, commander of the Russian army, from a photograph taken ’ust before 

the battle of Liaotung. 












594 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


for this purpose, 130 loads not being an 
unusual amount. 

Some idea of the amount and import¬ 
ance of the icon trade in this vicinity may 
be had when it is stated that it is valued 
at $750,000 per year. The majority of 


them are sold at a nominal price, perhaps 
25 cents a hundred at wholesale, but when 
the tourist comes to buy he pays several 
hundred per cent profit. The trade ex¬ 
tends all over Russia and the Balkan Pen¬ 
insula. 


WORST CRIMINAL COLONY ON EARTH. 


Sakhalin, an island of northeastern 
Siberia, is the colony to which all Rus¬ 
sia’s worst criminals are sent, and the 
very name of the island is barred in St. 
Petersburg, and there is little wonder at 
the taboo, when one reads of the condi¬ 
tions that exist there. Russia prides her¬ 
self on not executing murderers, and 
sends them to this cheerful island, where 
they form a very noticeable proportion 
of the population, with other desperate 
characters, men and women, and not a 
few political offenders of gentle rearing 
and cultivated tastes. Once there, the 
convict, if of the worst class, is consigned 
to what is termed the “testing” prison; 
those with terms of from four to twelve 
years are placed in a “reformatory” 
prison, while those with shorter terms are 
treated, after a short sojourn, as “free 
commands.” Promotion is from the 
“testing” to the “reformatory” jail, and 
thence to the “free command” division. 
Generally speaking, a third of each term 
is spent in each section. Even the ex¬ 
piration of a sentence does not bring ab¬ 
solute freedom. For six years the ex¬ 
convict must remain on the island as an 
“exile settler,” and then, if he is in a posi¬ 


tion, which few are, to get away, he may 
go as a “peasant” to Siberia for another 
six years. Then if he is alive, and has 
the means, he may return to Russia. The 
arrival of the free wife of a convict will 
secure the release even of a murderer 
from prison, and he may thereafter live 
as a “free command.” The choice of a 
female prisoner as a housekeeper by an 
“exile" operates in the same manner in 
her case. No marriage ceremony is per¬ 
formed. The women chosen by the of¬ 
ficials, ostensibly as cleaners and seam¬ 
stresses, remain in the “reformatory” 
prison. 

With a population recruited in this 
manner, and with the constant escape of 
prisoners, who must have recourse to 
highway robbery and burglary as a means 
of livelihood, life in Sakhalin is far from 
being “a sweet dream of peace.” Every 
one goes armed. In the towns the re¬ 
volver is carried in the pocket in the day¬ 
time, and in the hand at night. In the 
country, a rifle is taken as an additional 
protection. No self-respecting woman 
goes abroad in the streets without an 
escort. 




EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


595 


WONDERFUL FEATS OF INDIAN FAKERS. 


DESCRIPTION BY A NOTED 
TRAVELER. 

The two most interesting classes 
among the many kinds of priests, monks, 
and other people, who make religion a 
profession in India, are the fakers and 
nautch girls, both of whom are supposed 
to devote their lives and their talents to 
the service of the gods. There are sev¬ 
eral kinds of fakers or religious mendi¬ 
cants in India, about 5.000 in number, 
most of them being nomads, wandering 
from city to city and temple to temple, 
dependent entirely upon the charity of 
the faithful. 

They reward those who serve them 
with various forms of blessings; give 
them advice concerning all the affairs of 
life, from the planting of their crops to 
the training of their children. They claim 
supernatural powers to confer good and 
invoke evil, and the curse of a faker is 
the last misfortune that an honest* Hindu 
cares to bring upon himself, for it means 
a failure of his harvests, the death of his 
cattle by disease, sickness in his family 
and bad luck in everything that he under¬ 
takes. 

Hence these holy men, who are the 
familiars of the gods, and are believed to 
spend most of their time communicating 
with them in some mysterious way about 
the affairs of the world, are able to com¬ 
mand anything the people have to give, 
and nobody would willingly cross their 
shadows or incur their displeasure. 

RELIGIOUS BEGGARS. 

These religious mendicants go almost 
naked, usually with nothing but the 
smallest possible breech clout around their 


loins, which the police require them to 
wear; they plaster their bodies with mud, 
ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and 
other substances into their hair to give 
it an uncouth appearance. Sometimes 
they wear their hair in long braids hang¬ 
ing down their backs like the queue of a 
Chinaman; sometimes in short braids 
sticking out in every direction like the 
wool of the pickaninnies down South. 

Some of them have strings of beads 
around their necks, others coils of rope 
around them. They never wear hats and 
usually carry nothing but a small brass 
bowl, in imitation of Buddha, which is 
the only property they possess on earth. 
They are usually accompanied by a youth¬ 
ful disciple, called a “chela,” a boy of 
from ten to fifteen years of age, who will 
become a faker himself unless something 
occurs to change his career. 

The faker himself never begs; the gods 
he worships are expected to take care of 
him, and if they do not send him food he 
goes without it. It is a popular delusion 
also that fakers will not accept alms from 
anyone for any purpose, but I have con¬ 
siderable personal experience to the con¬ 
trary. I have offered money to hundreds 
of them and have never yet had it re¬ 
fused. A faker will snatch a penny as 
eagerly as any beggar you ever saw and 
if the coin you offer is smaller than he 
expects or desires he will show his disap¬ 
proval in an unmistakable manner. 

The large number of fakers are mere¬ 
ly religious tramps, worthless, useless im¬ 
postors, living upon the fears and super¬ 
stitions of the people and doing more 
harm than good. Others are without 



596 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


doubt earnest and sincere ascetics, who 
believe that they are promoting the wel¬ 
fare and happiness of their fellow-men 
by depriving themselves of everything 
that is necessary to happiness, purifying 
their souls by privation and hardship and 
obtaining spiritual inspiration and light 
by continuous meditation and prayer. 

Many are clairvoyants and have the 
power of second sight. They hypnotize 
subjects and go into trances themselves, 
in which condition the soul is supposed 
to leave the body and visit the gods. 
Some of the metaphysical phenomena are 
remarkable and even startling. They 
cannot be explained. 

LEARNED FAKERS. 

Among the higher class of fakers are 
many extraordinary men, profound schol¬ 
ars, accomplished linguists and others 
whose knowledge of both the natural and 
the occult sciences is amazing. 

I was told by one of the highest of¬ 
ficials of the Indian empire of an ex¬ 
traordinary feat performed by one of 
these fakers, who in some mysterious way 
transferred himself several hundred miles 
in a single night over a country where 
there were no railroads, and never took 
the trouble to explain how his journey 
was accomplished. 

The best conjurors, magicians and 
palmists in India are fakers. Many of 
them tell fortunes from the lines of the 
hand and from other signs with ex¬ 
traordinary accuracy. Old residents who 
have come in contact with this class relate 
astounding tales. 

A young lady at a hotel was incident¬ 
ally informed by a fortune telling faker 
she met accidentally in a Brahmin temple 


that she would soon receive news that 
would change all her plans and alter the 
course of her life, and the next morning 
she received a cablegram from England 
announcing the death of her father. If 
you get the old resident started on such 
stories he will keep telling them all night. 

Of course you have read of the incredi¬ 
ble and seemingly impossible feats per¬ 
formed by Hindu magicians, of whom the 
best and most skillful belong to the faker 
class. I have seen the “box trick’’ or 
“basket trick,” as they call it, in which 
a young man is tied up in a gunny sack 
and locked up in a box, then at a signal a 
few moments after appears smiling at the 
entrance to your house, but I have never 
found anyone who could explain how he 
escaped from his prison. 

They will take a mango, open it be¬ 
fore you, remove the seeds, plant them in 
a tub of earth, and a tree will grow and 
bear fruit before your eyes within half an 
hour. Or, what is even more wonderful, 
they will climb an invisible rope in the 
open air as high as a house, vanish into 
space, and then, a few minutes after, will 
come smiling around the nearest street 
corner. Or, if that is not wonderful 
enough, they will take an ordinary rope, 
whirl it around their heads, toss it into 
the air, and it will stand upright, as if 
fastened to some invisible bar, so taut and 
firm that a heavy man can climb it. 

AN INCREDIBLE EXPLANATION. 

These are a few of the wonderful 
things fakers perform about the temples, 
and nobody has ever been able to discover 
how they do it. People who begin an 
inquiry usually abandon it and declare 
that the tricks are not done at all, that 



FXTRAORDIXARY AFFAIRS AXD CONDITIONS 


597 


the spectators are simply hypnotized and 
imagine that they have seen what they 
afterward describe. 

This explanation is entirely plausible. 
It is the only safe one that can be given, 
and it is confirmed by other manifesta¬ 
tions of hypnotic power that you would 
not believe if I should describe them. 
Fakers have hypnotized people I know 
and have made them witness events and 
spectacles which they afterward learned 
were transpiring, at the very moment, 
five and six thousand miles away. For 
example, a young gentleman, relating his 
experience, declared that under the power 
of one of these men he attended his 
brother’s wedding in a London church 
and wrote home an account of it that was 
so accurate in its details that his family 
were convinced that he had come all the 
way from India without letting them 
know and had attended it secretly. 

I have never seen iqore remarkable 
contortionists than the fakers who can 
be found about temples in Benares, and 
frequently elsewhere. They are usually 
very lean men, almost skeletons. As they 
wear no clothing one can always count 
the muscles and bones through the skin, 
but their muscles and sinews are remark¬ 
ably strong and supple. 

They twist themselves into the most 
extraordinary shapes. The professional 
contortionists seen upon the vaudeville 
stage cannot compare with these religious 
mendicants, who give their exhibitions in 
the open air, or in the porticos of the 
temples in honor of some god and call it 
worship. 

They acquire the faculty of doing these 
things by long and tedious training under 
the instruction of older fakers, who are 


equally accomplished, and they are actual¬ 
ly considered worship, just as much as 
an organ voluntary, the singing of a 
hymn, or a display of pulpit eloquence in 
one of our churches. The more wonder¬ 
ful their feats the more acceptable to their 
gods, and they go from city to city 
through all India and from temple to 
temple, twisting their bodies into unnat¬ 
ural shapes and postures under the im¬ 
pression that they will thereby attain a 
higher degree of holiness and exalt them¬ 
selves in the favor of heaven. 

They do not give exhibitions for 
money. They cannot be hired for any 
price to appear upon a public stage. Dra¬ 
matic agents in London and elsewhere 
have frequently tempted them with for¬ 
tunes, but they cannot be persuaded to 
display their gifts for gain or violate 
their caste and the traditions of their 
profession. 

A TRAVELER’S STORY OF THE 

MARVELS PERFORMED IN HIS 
PRESENCE. 

"When in India I made the acquaint¬ 
ance of a juggler, who tried to instruct 
me in all his tricks. He said that it was 
imaginary on the part of the spectators, 
as he simply willed that they should see 
those things. Yet I, in common with 
Western nations, was too animalized, 
sensual and materialized by flesh eating 
and consumption of alcohol to retain or 
accept any deep spiritual teaching. 

“The most exciting performance that 
he gave for my amusement was the con¬ 
verting of a bamboo stick into a native 
servant, who waited at table and sup¬ 
plied our wants. Afterward—in his ab¬ 
sence—I tried it, and to my surprise the 



598 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


same man was before me asking for in¬ 
structions. I directed him to fill the chat¬ 
ties in the veranda with water from the 
well in the compound. This he proceeded 
to do. When he had filled them all to 
overflowing I requested him to stop. He, 
however, took no notice of me, and went 
on, stolidly, bringing in the water until, 
in my excited imagination, it seemed that 
the bungalow would be washed away. 
Finding that I could not arrest or stop 
his movements, he passing through me 
as though I did not exist, I drew my 
sword and lay in wait for him. I made 
a slash at him and apparently cut him in 
twain, when lo! there were two men 
bringing in the water, neither of whom 
could I restrain from doing so. 

“I was completely out of my depth, 
when I heard a quiet laugh behind me, 
and, on turning, found it was my instruct¬ 


or, who held up his right hand and the 
two men disappeared, the stick resuming 
its place on the veranda; and, to crown 
all, there was not the slightest sign of any 
water having been brought in. I excited¬ 
ly appealed to him for an explanation. 
He said he had been present all the time, 
having willed that he should be invisible 
to me, and that I should imagine myself 
to see and do what I thought had taken 
place. In order to prove it he asked me 
to step into the compound, and directed 
my attention to a large cavern, which I 
knew was not there before. As I entered 
a number of huge elephants and camels * 
issued from it in a continuous stream, yet 
I could not touch one of them. They ap¬ 
parently passed over me as though I did 
not exist. He again raised his hand and 
the cavern and animals disappeared.” 


LHASA. 


THE SACRED CITY OF BUDDHISM. 

Lhasa is the sacred city of Buddhism, 
and two places in it have especial sanctity. 
One of them is the Great Cathedral, the 
true “Lhasa” or “home of the gods” in 
the city proper, and the other is the palace 
of the Dalai Lama, or the living incarna¬ 
tion of Buddha, about three miles to the 
west of the city proper. In the view of 
all Buddhists, the most interesting spot in 
the city is the sacred mountain of Potala, 
which is crowned with the enormous 
structures of the Dalai Lama’s palace and 
the environing temples and monasteries. 
The so-called mountain is only about 300 
feet high, and above rise the walls of the 
palace to a height of 180 feet. 

Besides this temple palace, the Grand 


Lama has a summer palace about three 
miles to the southwest at Nor-bu Ling, a 
charming abode in the midst of a park. 
All pilgrims to the holy city pay their 
homage to the Dalai Lama, who receives 
the pilgrims every day. In the mornings 
the stream of de\iotees pours toward the 
sacred palace or the summer park, accord¬ 
ing"to his place of residence at the time. 

A HALLOWED SPOT. 

Potala, the “Mountain of Buddha,” 
has played a most interesting part in the 
history of Asia. For the past 1,200 years 
it has been the most hallowed spot in 
inner Asia. “When its shadow,” writes 
Reclus, “is projected by the setting sun 
on the azure sky, all work ceases in the 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


599 


city. The inhabitants gather in groups 
on the terraces, in the streets, and public 
places, casting themselves on the ground 
and raising a muffled evening song of 
praise toward the sacred shrine." 

There is no regularity about the streets, 
which divide the city proper into blocks 
of many shapes. In this district are the 
houses, huts and shops of the common 
people. It can boast of only one impor¬ 
tant temple, and that is the Great Cathe¬ 
dral at its southwest corner. The street 
fronts not taken up by houses are chiefly 
occupied by shops, bazaars and markets 
of all kinds. 

When the people go out to play or en¬ 
gage in the more formal acts of worship, 
they usually leave the city proper and 
resort to the temples or the pleasure 
grounds to the west or south of the city. 
Between the city proper and the palace of 
the Grand Lama are the government 
offices and the residences of the officials 
and other important and wealthy person¬ 
ages. 


RESORT OF MONKS. 

Lhasa is only a little town, containing 
scarcely more than 10,000 people. To 
be sure, the latest visitor, the Japanese 
Buddhist priest. Kawaguchi, who was 
there in 1903, speaks of Lhasa as a place 
of 70,000 inhabitants, but he undoubtedly 
included all the monasteries, some of 
which have 8,000 to 10,000 monks within 
their walls. These monasteries are situ¬ 
ated in the environs outside the city. 
They are not now, as they formerly were, 
the refuges of asceticism, but are schools 
for the teaching of Buddhist theology to 
the Lamaite clergy. Lhasa, like the 
Thibetans, is very dirty, and there is little 
in it that will seem attractive to a native 
of the Occident. 

Not till July, 1904, had there ever been 
any reliable accurate information regard¬ 
ing this forbidden city. At that date an 
English expedition under Major Young- 
husband forced its way into this, the only 
unknown region in civilization, demand¬ 
ing a commercial treaty and the rights 
common to modern nations. 


HOW JEWS ARE CHANGING. 


THEIR DIFFERENCES IN CUS¬ 
TOMS NOTICEABLE AT NEW 
YEAR CEREMONIAL. 

The celebration of the Jewish New 
Year 5665, on September 10, 1904. once 
more brings to mind the changes that are 
taking place in the manners and customs 
of the Jewish race in America, where the 
lack of any form of religious persecution 
is doing more to win the Jew from strict 
orthodoxy than all the cruel repressions 
of Europe could begin to effect. 

The Jewish New Year is observed, in 


accordance with the injunction : “And in 
the seventh month on the first day of the 
month shall ye have a holy convocation: 
no servile work shall ye do; a day of 
blowing the cornet shall it be unto you.” 
—Numbers xix, i. 

The cornet mentioned in the Bible is 
the ram’s horn, or “shofar,” and is used 
in all Jewish synagogues on the New 
Year. In the orthodox synagogue the 
man who has this duty must be an ex¬ 
ceedingly strict Jew. He must not have 
shaved his beard. He must not have 



600 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


committed any offense which would bar 
him from this sacred office. If he has 
done such a trivial thing as smoking a 
cigar on the Sabbath, he would be barred. 

When he is ready to blow the “shofar,” 
he covers his head with the “tallith,” a 
silken cloth, and takes his stand at the 
altar, beside the rabbi, and at certain 
places in the ceremony blows the solemn 
sounds. The congregation does not look 
toward him when the “shofar” is blown. 
This would be considered a sin. The man 
himself is so covered that his face cannot 
be seen. Only his hand holding the ram’s 
horn is left uncovered. 

But the man whose duty it is to blow 
the “shofar” in the reformed temple 
stands beside the rabbi, with bared head, 

AN UNKNOWN RACE 

Professor Carsten Borchgrevink, Scien¬ 
tist and Arctic explorer, says: 

“As the North Pole is surrounded by 
water, so the South Pole, we know, 
is surrounded by land. This great Ant¬ 
arctic continent, probably twice the size 
of Europe, is, I am convinced, peopled 
with an unknown race of man and beast. 
This great sixth part of the world is full 
of wonders and enigmas, of strange ani¬ 
mals, formations and people. 

“New people, new civilizations, new re¬ 
ligions, new developments await us—for 
that reason South Pole exploration is in¬ 
finitely more important than the finding 
of the North Pole. 

“The possibility of finding human be¬ 
ings on an antarctic continent is all im¬ 
portant and fascinating enough to out¬ 
weigh every and all arguments advanced 
in favor of North Pole hunting. The mil¬ 
lionaire spending his money to discover 


and the congregation looks forward 
eagerly to the blowing of the ram's horn. 
In the orthodox synagogue the “shofar” 
is blown about thirty times, whereas it 
is blown but three times in the reformed. 

In the orthodox church the rabbi must 
not shave his beard; he stands with a cap 
on his head and a “tallith” on his shoul¬ 
ders, similar to the one covering the head 
of the “shofar” blower. In the reformed 
synagogue the rabbi stands with uncov¬ 
ered head, dressed as is any other min¬ 
ister of the Gospel. The congregation 
has to sit on hard benches in the orthodox 
synagogue, while in the up-to-date re¬ 
formed sanctuary finely upholstered seats, 
similar to those in theatres, are used. 

AT THE SOUTH POLE. 

the North Pole doubtless performs a great 
service to geography, but the man who 
risks millions to discover the sixth con¬ 
tinent will do immeasurably more. 

“Reflect on the possibilities of finding 
twenty, forty or even a hundred million 
human beings, of whose existence we 
never dreampt, who, since the earliest 
ages, were separated from the five other 
parts of the globe, even as we are sep¬ 
arated from Mars. 

“We know, or at least we think we 
know, something about Mars, but the con¬ 
tinent surrounding the South Pole is 
wholly unknown, even in the realm of 
scientific speculation.” 

Professor Serviss, a scientist of most 
extensive learning, in commenting upon 
an inhabited Antarctic continent, says: 

“There is one very extraordinary fact 
affecting the lives of these people (if 
there be such people), that may have 




EXTRAORDIXARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 601 



Before Port Arthur A Second Time. 

Marshal Oyama, commander of the Japanese field forces. Marshal Oyama directed the 
operations which led to the capture of Port Arthur in the Chinese War. 

















602 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


served to modify their physical make-up 
in a most remarkable way. Dwelling not 
far from the positive pole of the earth's 
magnetism, around which, as happens 
with the negative pole in the far North, 
play auroral lights and other manifesta¬ 
tions of electro-magnetic energy, and be¬ 
ing rendered during the night continu¬ 
ally aware of these luminous radiations 
from the upper atmosphere, they may have 
developed senses unknown to us—electric 
senses, so to speak—recalling some of the 
powers of perception peculiar to insects 
and other lower forms of animal life. 

“One hesitates to represent human be¬ 
ings with any sense organs not possessed 
by the men and women we know, and yet, 
since the influences above spoken of have 
continued to operate during untold ages, 
the law of evolution suggests that they 
may have developed corresponding phys¬ 
ical functions. One has but to glance at 
the wonderful and grotesque forms as¬ 
sumed by certain birds and insects, con¬ 
tained in our museums, in order to per¬ 
ceive how perfectly without limit is the 
power of nature to evolve peculiar organs 
of sense, the purpose of which in some 
cases we can hardly conjecture. So the 
Antarcticans may possibly be provided, in 
addition to eyes, ears, noses, etc., with sub¬ 
sidiary organs suggested by the antennae 
of insects, or the phosphorescent organs 
of glow-worms and other light-giving ani¬ 
mals, and with these organs attached to 
their heads they may derive from the 
electricity of the atmosphere and the mag¬ 
netism of the earth’s crust physical im¬ 
pressions utterly beyond the range of 


our experience. The inhabitants of the 
deep sea differ radically from those of 
the surface waters, and in no respect 
more so than in the possession by many 
of them of a phosphorescent power, the 
ability to make light about them. The in¬ 
habitants of the Antarctic continent, if 
they exist, differ in their environment 
from those of other parts of the earth 
hardly less than the deep sea animals 
differ from mountain trout or Hudson 
River shad. And we must suppose that 
in their case, as in all other cases, nature 
makes proper provision for the differ¬ 
ences. If Captain Borchgrevink, pene¬ 
trating the Antarctic continent, should 
find there, when the long night prevailed, 
a people capable, through some modifica¬ 
tion of their physical organism, of pro¬ 
ducing that desideratum of practical sci¬ 
ence—light without heat, light akin to 
that of the glow-worm, the fire-fly and 
the deep-sea phosphorescent creatures— 
the discovery would hardly surprise the 
world more than that of the finding there 
of any people at all. 

“The pole itself would be for the Ant- 
articans the centre of interest on the earth. 
To it would be directed all their pilgrim¬ 
ages. We have not in all the world a 
form of universal interest to be compared 
with the South Pole as it must seem to a 
people dwelling round about it. It is the 
pivot of their heavens, the point where 
perpetual day lasts longest, the spot where 
they would be irresistibly tempted to erect 
a temple around which would he centred 
all the hopes, fears, and interests of their 
race.” 




GREAT QUESTIONS AND INTERESTS OF GOVERNMENT -603 


NEW RACE OF MEN. 


During the summer of 1903 a race hith¬ 
erto unknown to students of ethnology 
was discovered by Dr. Roth, the Queens¬ 
land protector of northern aborigines, and 
Mr. Charles Hedley, conchologist of the 
Sydney (N. S. W.) Museum. The 
home of this race is Mornington Island,, 
which was visited by the two scientists 
in the course of a scientific tour of the 
Gulf of Carpentaria and the Wellesley 
Archipelago, at the southern end of the 
gulf. Mornington Island was discovered 
in 1802 by Captain Matthew Flinders 
while surveying and mapping out the 
gulf, but he does not appear to have 
landed there. The island, which has an 
area of less than forty miles, has hitherto 
been known only by name. Its soil is 
poor with extensive marshes, and it offers 
no temptation to settlers. There is plenty 
of brush and coarse forest, sheltering 
kangaroos and other animals, which af¬ 
ford the islanders ample supplies of food. 
These before-unknown islanders, who had 
never seen a white man previous to the 


arrival of Dr. Roth and Mr. Hedley, are 
supposed to be either a retrograde type 
or else a more primitive type of the Aus¬ 
tralian races. Their language is related 
to that of other gulf natives. The use of 
clothing is unknown to them. They do 
not make huts, as do the natives on the 
mainland, but simply collect heaps of 
grass and sleep on the ground with these 
heaps between themselves and the wind. 
Articles to be transported from place to 
place are wrapped in bark, baskets being 
unknown to them. Their only water 
craft are rude rafts, made of a couple of 
logs lashed together with some light weed 
and propelled by branches used as pad¬ 
dles. They are much behind the natives 
of the mainland in a knowledge of even 
the rudest aboriginal appliances. In their 
communal relationships they have a strin¬ 
gent system of tribal classification, in- 
tended to represent different degrees of 
consanguinity and to assist in preventing 
too close intermarriage. 


SECRET SOCIETIES AND THEIR ORIGIN. 


Out of nearly 300 existing secret so¬ 
cieties in the United States there are 
hardly any which, in one way or another, 
may not be described as having descend¬ 
ed from the Masonic fraternity, either by 
imitation, adaptation, by borrowing this 
or that feature or by paralleling it in one 
or more ways with respect to ritual or 
practice. 

The story of how this has come about 
would form an interesting sociological 
chapter. No other feature of it falls more 


heavily on the attentoin than the fact that 
in the United States, the most democratic 
nation in the world, secret societies flour¬ 
ish more freely than anywhere else. No 
better evidence of it exists than that one- 
half of the Free Masons on the face of 
the globe are to be found in the United 
States, while ninety per cent of the Order 
of Odd Fellows are in America. 

In no other land than this are there 
hosts of secret orders whose members 
may be found everywhere, wearing but- 




604 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tons or jewels bearing their insignia. 
We, as Americans—that is, some 6,000,- 
000 of ns—seem to have fairly run secret 
society mad. 

SOME RAMIFICATIONS. 

And, as it was started out to explain, it 
is merely a species of “Freemasonry,” all 
the way down through the Odd Fellows, 
the Knights of Pythias, the Grand Army, 
the Red Men, yes, the Society of Tam¬ 
many, the “A. P. A.,” the college Greek- 
letter fraternities, the Royal Arcanum, 
the Woodmen, the Maccabees, the Forest¬ 
ers of several varieties, many of the labor 
organizations, even the Roman Catholic 
Knights of Columbus, as much if not 
more than the others, all the way through 
the 300. 

Freemasonry itself, as it is known to¬ 
day, does not go back of the period 1717- 
1725. The remains of the Masonic 
(operative) guilds in England in the sev¬ 
enteenth century, just as are some labor 
unions here today, were secret organiza¬ 
tions. 

They have no “degree” beyond that 
which was imparted to the candidates for 
merbership, who received what was called 
the “mason’s word,” a grip and some rig¬ 
marole formulae. In time, however, these 
societies became sociological classics, and 
men of rank were glad to receive an hon¬ 
orary membership, partly in response to 
the interest taken in investigating their 
antiquity, which was great, and because 
of their interest in the origin of a few 
alleged mysteries the guilds were said to 
contain. 

JOINED THE CRAFT. 

This was in the day when many British 
and other European savants, antiquarians 


and others were delving into Rosicrucian- 
ism, Gnosticism, cabalism, alchemy and 
the like, and when the philosopher’s stone 
was an object of academic research, much 
as the lost fleece was alleged to be at an 
earlier date. 

Among the well-known Englishmen 
who were prominent late in the seven¬ 
teenth century as antiquarians was Elias 
Ashmole. He was made a member of one 
of the operative “lodges” of “Freema¬ 
sons” and induced some of his friends to 
take an interest in what appeared to be 
one of the fads of that day. It soon be¬ 
came the popular thing for an English 
gentleman, and it was not many years be¬ 
fore some of the effects of this exalted 
membership began to show themselves 
upon the ancient guild craft. 

By 1717 there were remaining only 
four lodges in London, the rituals of 
which had been embroidered with the 
fancifulness of the antiquarian cult which 
had patronized the earlier operative 
“Freemasons” and it was from them, 
with the additional turrets and pinnacles 
placed upon that rudimentary Masonic 
edifice, as Ashmole and others found it. 
that Freemasonry comes down to us— 
that it went from England to the con¬ 
tinent of Europe, to Scotland, Ireland, 
America and throughout the world. 

ORDER REACHES AMERICA. 

But it was when the three degrees, two 
of them superimposed with the host of 
so-called Scottish—but really French— 
adornments, reached the British colonies 
in America late in the eighteenth century 
that the work of propagation began which 
has expanded until there are here today 
more than 300 systems of little Free- 




EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


605 


masonry, each with its signs, grips, pass¬ 
words, its rituals, its legends, its lessons 
of virtue and morality and charity, its 
obligations, its symbols, insignia and all 
the rest. 

Ashmole and his confreres and follow¬ 
ers were not slow to superimpose upon 
the simple Masonic initiatory ceremonies 
much that was appealing to the mystics 
among the upper classes of their time, 
and to that fact was due. no doubt, the 
vogue that was secured to Freemasonry 
between 1660 and 1725 among the titled 
classes in the United Kingdom. From 
that it was only a step in forming Ma¬ 
sonic lodges by British diplomatic at¬ 
taches and by officers of the British army 
and navy at metropolitan centres through¬ 
out the world. 

RITUAL OF MASONRY. 

In the various Masonic lectures to this 
day the student may discover appropria¬ 
tions of not only old testament history 
and ethics, but of Pythagorism, gnosti¬ 
cism and modern philosophies. The ritu¬ 
als of the primitive three degrees have re¬ 
tained touches from the mediaeval work¬ 
ingmen's guilds and the Roman builders, 
the third degree being unique by embody¬ 
ing an epitome of what are classed as the 
ancient mysteries, the Royal Arch degree 
—originally a part of the third degree— 
exhibiting much of cabalism, and the 
Scottish Rite, so-called, of Rosicrucian- 
ism, Templary, Maltaism and the Chris¬ 
tian ritual. No especial reference to 
Knight Templary or to the Knights of 
Malta, as such, is needed, as those 
branches of the American Masonic rite 
are palpably borrowed from the alleged 
Scottish degrees or grades. 


MODERN FREEMASONRY. 

Just as the aristocratic Society of the 
Cincinnati, when formed by Washington 
and his generals at the close of the revo¬ 
lution, was followed and rivaled by a 
democratic patriotic organization, the 
various societies of Tamina, or Tam¬ 
many, of which we have a relic in New 
York, and, unknown to many of its mem¬ 
bers, a progeny in the Improved Order 
of Red Men, so the spread of modern 
Freemasonry in England after 1725 was 
followed by the rise and growth of the 
more democratic Odd Fellows, the Dru¬ 
ids, the Foresters and other “friendly” 
societies, all of which imitated the fra¬ 
ternal and charitable features of Free¬ 
masons. the King Solomon legend of the 
latter giving way to that of David and 
Jonathan for the Odd Fellows, to the 
traditions of the Druids and to the ro¬ 
mance woven about Robin Hood and 
Friar Tuck for the Foresters. 

So it has been in nine out of ten of the 
secret society parallels all along down the 
line. 

The leaders among the 300 or more liv¬ 
ing secret orders lend themselves as de¬ 
scendants of Freemasonry to a classifica¬ 
tion into three groups. 

1. Occult and philosophical, the latter 
including the fraternal Greek letter or col¬ 
lege societies. 

2. The “friendly,” and, drawn from 
them, the mutual benefit assessment orders 
which are so popular as furnishing a 
cheaper form of life insurance or “pro¬ 
tection.” 

3. Specialized secret societies, some of 
them utilitarian; organizations seeking 
specific objects other than devotion to 
charity and fraternity, as such, by means 




606 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


of the machinery of the average secret 
society. 

OCCULT FRATERNITIES. 

In the fraternities grouped under the 
head of occult, the purposes in the main 
are the study of the mystical; they sug¬ 
gest a Swedenborg as founder; their 
membership is not large and little of their 
doings is ever made public. 

Their significance in this connection 
comes home quickest to the Freemason 
who has attained the higher degrees. In 
their rituals, degrees and lectures he finds 
them magnifying and emphasizing one or 
another of the features of some of the 
Masonic high degrees. 

Weishaupt’s Illuminati, a secret sect 
formed in Germany about the time of the 
close of the war of the revolution in this 
country, was a schismatic, philosophical 
Masonic cult, and from it, as it is believed, 
was taken much that characterized earlier 
Phi Beta Kappa, the prototype of the long 
string of college Greek letter fraternities, 
of which Alpha Delta Phi, Psi Upsilon, 
Delta Kappa Epsilon, Kappa Alpha, 
Sigma Phi, Beta Theta Pi, Chi Psi and 
Zeta Psi are among the earlier and more 
prominent followers. In nearly all of 
them the thumbmarks of Freemasonry are 
plainly discerned. 

Reference has been made to the earlier 
“friendly” societies, the Odd Fellows, 
Foresters and Druids. Patterned after 
them, and their masonic decorations, with 
subsequent additions, are the Red Men, 
the American Order of Hibernians, the 
Knights of Pythias, with its legend of 
distress and rescue based on the story of 
Damon and Pythias; the so-called An¬ 
cient and Illustrious Order of the Knights 


of Malta, which is not ancient, however 
illustrious it may be, and which, either 
known or unknown to all but its founders, 
is merely the offspring of Templar, Malta 
and other Freemasonry; the Elks, mod¬ 
eled on the Shrine attachment to Free¬ 
masonry, and others which it is not neces¬ 
sary to enumerate. 

FRATERNAL INSURANCE. 

The American utilitarian, not so say 
commercial, spirit was not slow to evolve 
the modified form of a mutual assessment 
insurance -society from the “friendly” or¬ 
ganizations which come to us from Eng¬ 
land, through the Odd Fellows, Foresters 
and Druids, the earliest having been 
founded back in the ’6o ? s by a Freemason, 
the Ancient Order of United Workmen, 
so “Masonic” without being Freemasonry 
as to amaze if not repel the Freemason 
who is received into it. 

Following in its train there have been 
formed nearly 200 similar insurance se¬ 
cret orders, one-half of which have with¬ 
ered financially, or are withering, and 
more than 100 of which are actively alive, 
some of them very much so. Among the 
better known and more prosperous are 
the Royal Arcanum, the Knights of 
Honor, the Woodmen, the Knights of the 
Maccabees, the Independent Order of For¬ 
esters, various Hebrew secret fraternal 
assessment orders, several negro frater¬ 
nities of like character and the short-term 
assessment societies. 

The earlier Sons of Liberty and Sons of 
Tarnina or Tammany of revolutionary 
days were Freemasons. The “Indians” 
who threw the tea overboard in Boston 
harbor were members of a Masonic lodee 
which had just closed to make the raid. 




EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


607 


MEMBERSHIP OF FRATERNAL 
SOCIETIES. 

The membership of the principal fra¬ 
ternal organizations in the United States 


and Canada is as follows: 

Odd Fellows .1,193,749 

Freemasons . 965,000 

Modern Woodmen of America. 711,923 

Knights of Pythias. 562.327 

Ancient Order of United Work¬ 
men . 460,000 

Knights of the Maccabees. 350,441 

Improved Order of Red Men. . 334,495 

Royal Arcanum. 277,974 

Foresters of America. 221,974 

Independent Order of Foresters 220,000 

Woodmen of the World.217,000 

Benevolent and Protective Or¬ 
der of Elks . 154,000 

Ancient Order of Hibernians. . 145,000 

Ladies of the Maccabees. 130,268 

Junior Order of United Ameri¬ 
can Mechanics . 116,106 

Knights of the Modern Mac¬ 
cabees. 115,522 

Knights of Columbus. 98,000 

Ladies’ Catholic Benevolent As¬ 
sociation . 87,400 


Knights and Ladies of Honor. . 73.000 

Knights of the Golden Eagle. 70,000 

Tribe of Ben Hur. 68,813 

National Union . 67,223 

Order of Eagles . 67,000 

Court of Honor. 66,449 

Catholic Mutual Benevolent As¬ 
sociation . 62,000 

Improved Order of Heptasophs 57,2 55 

Protected Home Circle . 55>000 

Knights of Honor . 52,000 

United Order of American Me¬ 
chanics . 43.582 

Brith Abraham Order. 42,781 

Ancient Order of Foresters.... 38,789 

Catholic Benevolent Legion. . . . 38,286 

Brotherhood of American Yeo¬ 
men . 37,684 

Order of Gleaners. 37,400 

Sons of Temperance. 34,789 

New England Order of Protec¬ 
tion . 33 . 36 i 

Independent Order of B'nai 

B'rith . 30,000 

Knights of Malta. 27,000 

Smaller organizations not re¬ 
ported . 361,592 

Total .7,414,173 


GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC. 


SOCIETY OF SONS OF VETERANS. 

ORIGIN OF THE G. A. R. 

The Rev. William J. Rutledge, while 
chaplain of the Fourteenth Illinois In¬ 
fantry, was the tent mate of Major B. F. 
Stephenson, and in the weary hours of 
their marching and bivouac Chaplain Rut¬ 
ledge had many conferences with Dr. 
Stephenson concerning the future of the 
million and more of men who would soon 
lav down their arms and be scattered all 


over the Union, the Chaplain insisting 
that they would naturally desire some 
form of association by which they could 
perpetuate their experiences as soldiers 
of the Union. 

Dr. B. F. Stephenson was deeply im¬ 
pressed by this suggestion and appreciated 
that an organization that would include 
all honorably discharged soldiers and 
sailors and the gallant officers who com¬ 
manded them, whose fundamental prin- 




































608 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ciples were fraternity, loyalty and charity, 
would be far reaching in its benefits, the 
important point being to formulate a rit¬ 
ual that would serve the high and noble 
purposes they had in mind for such an 
organization. 

Captain John S. Phelps was invited to 
help them. He became so enthusiastic 
over the proposition that he worked un¬ 
tiringly with Dr. Stephenson in perfect¬ 
ing the ritual, charter and by-laws for 
the order. 

According to this ritual, lodges were 
opened at Springfield and Decatur, Illi¬ 
nois. 

Following upon the organization of the 
posts at Decatur and Springfield, a call 
was made for a grand convention at 
Springfield for the launching of the Grand 
Army of the Republic. It was held July 
12, 1866, and was largely attended by 
ex-Union officers and soldiers. This 
convention gave its unqualified indorse¬ 
ment to the plans formulated by Dr. B. 
F. Stephenson and his co-workers. 

FIRST NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT. 

They provided for the first national en¬ 
campment, which was held at Indian¬ 
apolis, November 20, 1866. General S. 
A. Hurlburt was elected commander-in¬ 
chief. The senior and junior vice-com¬ 
manders, subordinate officers and a coun¬ 
cil of administration were elected and 
the order formally launched in its great 
work. 

For some reason the national encamp¬ 
ment was not called in 1867. but met in 
Philadelphia, January 15, 1868, when 
General John A. Logan was elected com¬ 
mander-in-chief. As was his wont to do, 
he threw his whole soul into the work 


and, after a conference with the officers 
then elected and the council of admin¬ 
istration, proceeded to encourage the ex¬ 
tending of the order and increasing their 
good works. 

He established national headquarters 
in Washington and drew around him an 
able staff. May 5, 1868, he issued Gen¬ 
eral Orders No. 11, establishing Memo¬ 
rial Day. 

ITS WORK AND AIMS. 

In their stupendous work of succoring 
the suffering, comforting the living, car¬ 
ing for the dying and the dead, the Grand 
Army of the Republic has far exceeded 
that of any other organization the world 
has ever known. In the cultivation of a 
spirit of patriotism it has accomplished 
more than has been by any other methods 
ever adopted. This influence in the retro¬ 
spective doubtless inspired the organiza¬ 
tion of Sons and Daughters of the Amer¬ 
ican Revolution and other kindred socie¬ 
ties. It is probably not too much to say 
that had there been a Grand Army of the 
Republic at the close of the war of the 
revolution there never would have been 
any war of the rebellion. Fraternal ties 
in the interest of patriotism would have 
prevented the growth of sectionalism. 

SONS OF VETERANS. 

Realizing a time would come when the 
last ex-Union soldier would lie down to 
peaceful slumber, a wise provision has-; 
been made for the perpetuation of the^ 
spirit and principles of the Grand Army 
of the Republic by the formation of the 
Society of Sons of Veterans, who are 
pledged: 

“To keep green the memories of our 




General Kuroki receiving dispatches from Oyama 








GiO 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


fathers, and their services for the main¬ 
tenance of the union. To aid the mem¬ 
bers of the Grand Army of the Republic 
in caring for their helpless and disabled 
veterans. To extend aid and protection 
to the widows and orphans. To per¬ 
petuate the memory in history of their 
heroic deeds and the proper observance 
of Memorial Day. 


“To aid and assist worthy and needy 
members of the order. 

“To inculcate patriotism and love of 
country, not only among our member¬ 
ship, but among all the peoples of our 
land, and to spread and sustain the doc¬ 
trines of equal rights, universal liberty 
and justice to all.” 


GAMBLING MANIA IN LOTTERIES. 


WINNERS ALWAYS LOSE. 

There is little agitation against lottery 
gambling nowadays, and the two or three 
extensive organizations which continue to 
sell tickets to the public in devious ways 
are enormously rich, and but little hin¬ 
dered by the restrictions placed upon their 
“business” by the government. One of 
these companies sold nearly $200,000 
worth of tickets in Chicago in 1903, al¬ 
though much of this patronage came from 
nearby towns in which there are no au¬ 
thorized agents. 

Nearly all of this illegal business was 
done with poor people, and it is estimated 
that there are more than 10,000 laborers, 
clerks, and mechanics in Chicago who are 
confirmed lottery gamblers, who invest 
from 25 cents to $2 every month, and 
who have been addicted to this habit of 
gambling for years. About one in every 
hundred of these, according to estimates 
made by attaches of the lotteries, “come 
out even,” and about 75 per cent do not 
win a dollar in a year. 

Various commissions are paid to the 
authorized agents of the lotteries, and 
some of them pay regular salaries of from 
$10 to $25 a week to “boosters,” who ex¬ 
patiate on the chances of winning, and 


spread about town the location of places 
where the tickets can be had. The 
enormous profits of the companies, all of 
which are now operated from cities out¬ 
side of the United States, can be surmised 
when it is known that they occasionally 
pay out enormous sums in prizes, and 
yet never curtail the vast expenses which 
the exploitation of their contraband tick¬ 
ets requires. 

ADVERTISED BY OCCASIONAL 
WINNERS. 

The best advertisement the lotteries 
can get is that which comes of the boast¬ 
ing of occasional winners, for lottery 
gambling is like all other forms in that 
the winners never fail to publish their 
successes, while the losers are invariably 
given to the maintenance of a discreet 
silence. The self-deluding vagaries of the 
lottery fiend are, perhaps, the most inter¬ 
esting. as they are also the most senseless 
symptoms of his mania, but some of the 
stories of “lucky numbers,” unfounded 
expectation, and final disappointment as 
told about lottery “investment,” are in¬ 
teresting, ludicrous, or tragic. 

A confirmed lottery player, who is bill 
clerk in a Chicago wholesale house, was 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


611 


run down by an automobile in Michi¬ 
gan avenue. Although severely shaken 
up. he leaped to his feet and ran madly 
after the car. the driver of which was 
frightened to find himself pursued. The 
hatless, panting clerk was satisfied as 
soon as he caught a glimpse of the num¬ 
ber of the automobile and quit the chase. 
His comrade coming up. asked him 
whether he meant to attack the chauf¬ 
feur. “Xo, I never thought of that." 
was the answer. “I was never run over 
before, but luck always g*>es by opposites, 
and I'm going to play that number in 
next month's lottery drawing. " He was 
gratified after a long search, for he found 
the looked for ticket and bought it for 
Si. Sure enough, he won a prize, the first 
he had struck in years of play. That it 
ivas only $5 did not diminish his triumph. 
From his point of view that automobile 
had “changed his luck.” 

o 

THIRTY YEARS WITHOUT WIN¬ 
NING. 

Luke Brady, an old drayman in St. 
Louis, played the lottery for thirty years 
without success. One day last year he re¬ 
ceived a telegram from the company 
which said: “L'nderstand you've played 
our lottery for thirty years and never 
won. Have decided to give prize to your 
ticket next month. Wire your number." 
Poor old Luke was almost wild with de¬ 
light. He began to negotiate for the 
sale of his team and dray, and quite 
made up his mind to go home to Ireland 
to spend his money and his old age. 
Luckily he confided to the young busi¬ 
ness man for whom he did most of his 
teaming, and that wise young person ad¬ 
vised him to wait till he had the lottery 


money safe in the bank before doing any¬ 
thing that might prove rash. 

The story that Luke was to be 
“handed" the capital prize leaked out and 
encouraged many a worthless friend to 
borrow a dollar or two from the lucky 
teamster. To realize at once on his for¬ 
tune Brady began to spend money pretty 
freely and to do as little work as possible. 
The young business man had frequently 
urged the folly of lottery gambling on his 
old Irish employee, and now he warned 
him that perhaps there was some hoax or 
some mistake about that telegram. Xo. 
there couldn't be. Luke swore, and pulled 
out the well thumbed, often read dispatch 
from the company. As the day of the 
drawing arrived Luke was simply inca¬ 
pable of work. He came down to his 
friend's store arrayed in a new suit and 
with many gills of anticipatory celebra¬ 
tion stowed beneath his belt. He was 
hectic, nervous, smiling to himself, the 
observed and the envy of all who knew 
what he was waiting for. Toward quit¬ 
ting time a messenger boy arrived with 
a telegram for Luke Brady. With fever¬ 
ish delight he opened it and read: “Luke 
Brady. St. Louis. Mo.: Sorry you didn't 
win. The man at the wheel made a mis¬ 
take." It was signed by the same com¬ 
pany that had sent the first, but now old 
Luke was in a fun*. He showed his dis¬ 
patch to all who would look at it, ami 
roundly cursed—not the company, mind 
you, but “the man at the wheel." 

“I've a good mind to go down there 
myself an' bate him within an inch of his 
life!" roared Luke. “He's robbed me out 
an' out. that's what he's done!" 

Of course it was Brady's friend, the 
business man, who had sent both the 



612 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


1 


bogus telegrams, and, if the trick was 
cruel, it had the desired effect, for Luke 
never bought another lottery ticket. 

HOAX PROVES CRUEL. 

Less happy was the experience of the 
foreman of one of the great printing 
offices of New York. The lottery habit 
was growing in the office, and Brown, the 
foreman, was the most inveterate player. 
He had won a few small prizes, and he 
began to notice that the tickets he pur¬ 
chased on Friday often won more than 
they cost. “That ought to settle it,” he 
mused. “I’ll buy one on Friday, the 13th, 
and see what happens.” He did so, and 
as the proposed big prize of that month 
was to be $60,000 he bought a full ticket. 
He made no secret of his hopes, and when 
the drawing day approached most of the 
men in the shop knew that Brown was 
looking for “a killing.” It is customary 
on the night of the drawings to telegraph 
the numbers which drew the great prizes 
to all of the big agencies, where they are 
printed in black faced type on slips of 
plain white paper. 

One of the printers got hold of this 
slip before Brown had seen it, and, realiz¬ 
ing at once that the foreman’s ticket had 
touched none of the largest prizes, 
thoughtlessly decided to set up and print 
a fake list with the foreman's number as 
the winner of the $60,000. Brown, who 
had seen a score of similar lists, fell into 
the trap in a minute. His comrades were 
astonished to see him put on his hat and 
coat, call his assistant, and announce in 
a loud voice that he was going to quit 
instantly. He declared vociferously that 
he had won $60,000 in the lottery, and 
that he would leave in the morning to col¬ 


lect it. The practical joker who printed 
the fake slip of winners was more sur¬ 
prised and scared at the result of his joke 
than any one. But he was afraid to dis¬ 
illusion his chief, who was a powerful 
man of the most violent temper. Brown 
was permitted to go his way, and for days 
and nights the office was in constant dread 
lest he should find out that he had been 
fooled and return in a fury. But he never 
came back. 

SUICIDE FOLLOWS LOSS. 

A German cabinetmaker in McKees¬ 
port, Pa., being penurious in all but his 
passion for lottery gambling, was pleased 
to see that his best workman had fallen 
in love with his daughter. He liked the 
young man and was glad of the prospect 
of handing over his business to the hus¬ 
band of his daughter when he himself 
should become incapacitated by old age 
or disease. But the question of a wed¬ 
ding present worried him continually. 
When the date had been fixed he thought 
he had arrived at a cunning solution of 
the question, and he gave his son-in-law- 
to-be one of the three lottery tickets he 
had bought for the coming distribution of 
prizes. This ticket, which had been 
bought in Pittsburg, won $30,000, and 
when the old German realized that he 
had given away the chance to win so 
great a prize, he killed himself by jump¬ 
ing out of a third story window. He 
had played the game assiduously for 
seven years, and the shock of what he 
regarded as his loss unbalanced his mind. 

SOLD $15,000 FOR $2. 

A millionaire horseman, whose stable 
of thoroughbreds was racing at New* 
Orleans, was for years celebrated as own- 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


613 


ing more “also ran” racehorses than any 
man on the American turf. He never 
won with his steeds, and, like the most of 
his class, attributed his failure to “bad 
luck.” Warned by repeated losses, he 
seldom backed his own animals for more 
than a few dollars. His janitor one day 
asked him to advance $i on the wages 
account and the millionaire playfully 
asked for security. “Ah hain't got 
nothin’ but a lot’ry ticket,” said the darky, 
whereupon the boss proposed to let him 


have $2 instead of Si in exchange for 
the bit of printed paper. That ticket won 
$15,000, of which Mr. Janitor got a pres¬ 
ent of $50. 

The sporting millionaire said: “My 
luck has changed,” and went south to col¬ 
lect his winnings. He got them all right, 
bet the whole pile on his own horses, lost 
every cent of the prize money, sold out 
his stable, and came back home to look 
after his rich estate. 


TYPICAL TANGLES OF A KING. 


CURIOUS PRESUMPTIONS IN 
ENGLISH LAW. 

It is the general impression that, within 
the very broadest limits, the King of the 
realm can do just what he likes, which, 
in theory, at all events, is just what he 
cannot do. If His Majesty were to do 
all the things he is supposed to do, and 
which it is specifically laid down in the 
rules of the Constitution he must do, his 
life would lie quite unbearable; he would 
never have a minute of time for his own 
purposes, he would get no sleep, and he 
would speedily collapse. Yet. according 
to this tyrannical Constitution, he would 
never die, for it is specially set forth 
that the King does not do so, but that 
the office merely passes from one person 
to another. The utmost that it will ever 
admit is that there may be a “demise of 
the Crown.” 

THE KING REQUIRED TO BE 

SEVERAL PLACES AT ONCE. 

It is demanded by the Constitution that 
the King shall be present at every sitting 
of Parliament, and it may be news to 
some people that His Majesty is always 


supposed to be there. This little diffi¬ 
culty is got over by his presence being 
understood, though it is not actual. In 
the same way the King is declared to be 
present every day when the Law Courts 
are sitting, in each one of the courts and 
at the same time. 

In this case it is not merely held that 
the judges represent the King; it is said 
that he is there himself, and this fiction is 
necessary for many purposes. If an 
ordinary person were to bring an action 
against any other and did not attend at 
the courts when it was called on he would 
be promptly non-suited. But there are 
hundreds of actions brought even vear in 
the name of the King (“Rex") for trans¬ 
gressions more or less serious of the na- 
tional law. and that the State might never 
be non-suited in such a matter it is always 
understood that the King is there in 
reality. 

Again, it is held that on no account 
must the King go about anywhere, par¬ 
ticularly to foreign parts, without having 
a minister of state in constant attendance 
upon him to present Parliamentary bills 
and other matters to him for signature. 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Cl t 


Therefore there very often is a minister 
in attendance, but the King and the Gov¬ 
ernment sometimes wink at this little rule, 
and His Majesty goes abroad without. 

Nominally the Army belongs to the 
King, but to this day Parliament, having 
some past experiences of history in mind, 
is particularly careful that he never owns 
it for more than a year at a time. There 
are no “keeps” so far as the Army is 
concerned. This difficulty is arranged by 
the passing of an Army Bill once every 
year in Parliament, which specially grants 
the Army to the King’s use for the en¬ 
suing twelve months. If in any vear that 
bill were not passed the King would be 
without an army. 

THE KING’S PARDONS. 

There are some other peculiar limita¬ 
tions. As is well known, no matter of 
what crime a subject may have been most 
conclusively proved to be guilty, the King 
can grant him a free pardon without con¬ 
sulting anyone. The royal clemency is 
often appealed to with this object in view. 
But until sentence has been actually passed 
it is beyond the power of any King to 
set free a man who is undergoing his 
trial. The Constitution holds that it 
must prove or disprove the guilt of any 
man charged, and that then, and only 
then, the King can do what he likes with 
him. Again, the King can order any of 
his subjects to go anywhere he chooses 
to send him, and he has to go accord¬ 
ingly. If His Majesty singled out any 
Britisher and told him to go to either 
Timbuctoo or the north pole, he would 
have to start at once. But the King has 
not the power to order a foreigner to 
walk from one end of the Strand to the 


other, or even to cross a street. This 
power is vested in Parliament alone. 

With so many delicate restrictions and 
distinctions the Constitution often runs a 
risk of tying itself in a knot, so to speak, 
and has a narrow escape in two or three 
cases. Thus, though the King can do no 
wrong, and if he broke the law at any 
time the fact would be attributed to the 
“error of his advisers,” he is the only 
man in the whole realm who cannot ar¬ 
rest a suspected felon. All other persons 
have this power, and it was never in¬ 
tended to deny it to the King, but it has 
come about, curiously enough, through 
the operation of the other understanding 
just mentioned. 

NO WRONG WITHOUT A REMEDY. 

It is the first principle of English law 
that there can be no wrong without a 
remedy. If a man at any time is wrong¬ 
fully arrested he has his remedy against 
the person arresting him in an action for 
false imprisonment. But he could not 
bring such an action against the King, 
because His Majesty can do no wrong. 
Therefore, in this case there might be a 
wrong without a remedy, which the law 
will not allow. The Constitution thinks 
that the best way out of this most awk¬ 
ward difficulty is to instruct all Kings that 
on no account must they arrest anyone, 
which is done accordingly. 

Another singular fact is that the King 
of England, in the eyes of the Constitu¬ 
tion, never has any youth. He is never 
recognized as ever having been less than 
of full age, and if he ascended the throne 
at three years of age it would be declared 
that lie had already achieved man’s estate. 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


615 


KLEPTOMANIACS. 


One of the most striking evidences of 
insanity among petty thieves is mani¬ 
fested by a preference for some special 
article often to the exclusion of more 
valuable plunder which lies as ready to 
their hands. In some instances this un¬ 
reasoning weakness for some object of 
trifling value has driven the kleptomaniac 
to the most extraordinary displays of in¬ 
genuity, patience and cunning. 

A well dressed, middle aged -woman 
was arrested in a department store be¬ 
cause she was detected in the act of steal¬ 
ing a pair of scissors from the counter. 
When searched by the matron of the es¬ 
tablishment no less than five pairs of scis¬ 
sors were found in her pockets. She ad¬ 
mitted that she had stolen them all, but 
as they were not of the same patterns 
sold bv the store it was evident that she 

J 

had taken some from other places. She 
agreed to give them all up to the detec¬ 
tive, but could not remember where she 
had picked them up. A search of her 
home revealed a collection of 1,100 pairs 
of scissors tastefully arranged upon the 
walls of her room. She had sold none 
of them, and many were cheap, almost 
worthless, bits of cutlery. 

There is in London a thie. who has 
been convicted a dozen times of stealing 
wheelbarrows. He is no sooner released 
from jail than he sets forth upon what 
seems to be an irresistible quest for more 
wheelbarrows. No matter how rickety, 
old, or cumbersome the barrow, he will 
make off with it if he can, but he has 
never been known to steal anything else. 
Another display of this peculiarity among 


thieves is found in the disappearance of 
thousands of communion cups from 
churches in which the small individual 
chalices are used. From one Presby¬ 
terian church 216 of these comparatively 
valueless vessels have been taken in the 
course of one year, the large jewel studded 
chalice and paten being always ignored, 
though quite as accessible as the small 
ones. 

A richly stocked optical store was 
broken into and ransacked by night prowl¬ 
ers. The place contained costly lenses, 
microscopes, telescopes, and gold-rimmed 
eye-glasses worth many thousands of dol¬ 
lars, but the thief took nothing but a hun¬ 
dred assorted glass eyes. The fact that 
the demand for these contrivances is sel¬ 
dom and slight convinced the police that 
the burglar was a one-eyed person in 
search of a mate for his good eye. A 
month later, however, another shop of 
the same class was robbed, and, after go¬ 
ing over his disarrayed stock, the pro¬ 
prietor was surprised and pleased to ad¬ 
mit that nothing of value was missing. 
The detective, who remembered the 
former case, asked whether artificial eyes 
had been in the stock, and, learning that 
they had, searched diligently with the 
clerks only to find that the box containing 
them had been carried off by the thief. 
The capture of the peculiar burglar fol¬ 
lowed, but he had two good eyes and had 
not tried to sell any of his queer plunder. 

Criminals or kleptomaniacs of this 
class are seldom caught and never attempt 
to explain their erratic preferences. Ex¬ 
pert policemen believe that it is an exces- 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


61C 


sive development of the “collection” fad, most any cost without purloining his 
although it is often found that the thief prizes, 
is wealthy enough to practice a fad of al- 


STRANGE INTUITIONS OF SAVAGES. 


Travelers among the lower orders of 
men have often been forced to recognize 
that they possess some faculty which we, 
who have improved upon our beginnings, 
are able neither to exercise nor to under¬ 
stand. “I ‘feel’ them!” says the Semang. 
the little Negrit of the jungle-smothered 
highlands of the Malay peninsula, and 
thus explains in no illuminative fashion 
his power of detecting the presence of 
strangers when they are still far beyond 
the reach of sight or hearing or smell. 

MENTAL TELEGRAPHS. 

Quite recently, and not for the first 
time, attention has been called to the 
standing miracle which men name the 
“native telegraph.” Most people who 
have lived much among brown, black, or 
yellow folk have known instances of the 
extraordinarily rapid dissemination of 
news, usually of a calamitous character, 
in a country where no means of speedy 
communication were available. Does 
some native “feel” the shock of the event 
just as the Semang “feels” the presence 
of the alien in his deep jungle strong¬ 
holds? To me it seems that this must be 
so; that one or more natives, in whose 
acute perceptions others have learned to 
repose confidence, experience in an in¬ 


tensified form what we less sensitive 
Europeans call a presentiment, and put¬ 
ting two and two together, hazard a 
prophecy which nine times out of ten 
proves to be curiously near the truth. 

This sounds a simple explanation, be¬ 
cause a “presentiment” is something 
which comes withyi the experience of 
most white men; but the native prophecy 
of evil differs from that of the European 
in that it is more often right than wrong. 
What it comes to, then, is this: The 
primitive Semang says frankly that he 
“feels” that which, according to all known 
laws, it is quite impossible that he should 
feel; the Kaffir of the veld or the native 
of our Eastern bazaars “feels” distant 
happenings also, and by means of a simi¬ 
lar faculty, but his somewhat higher civ¬ 
ilization tends to blunt the acuteness of 
his perceptions, and gives him but a scant 
grasp of detail; the white man, more in¬ 
sensitive still, “feels” only very vaguely, 
and often, it should be noted, without suf¬ 
ficient cause. Have we not in this at any 
rate the hint of a faculty, dulled by dis¬ 
use or sharpened by constant and pro¬ 
longed employment, but which must, 
none the less, be recognized as actually 
extant, and capable, it may be, of im¬ 
mense development ? 


SOME ODD THINGS. 


STRANGE CITIES OF THE DEAD was being built. In 1784 it became neces- 
IN SUBTERRANEAN CAVERNS. sary to remove the Cemetery of Innocents 
The catacombs of Paris were originally to make way for public buildings and the 
great stone quarries mined when the city then abandoned underground quarries 





Rifles of the Russian Infantry in the war with Japan. 





















































618 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


were used as a resting place for the bones. 
Other cemeteries within the city were 
soon after likewise relieved of their dead, 
whose bones were regularly piled up in 
the great subterranean vaults, till the vast 
heaps of human remains occupy two hun¬ 
dred acres under the city of Paris. 

PERSON MAY BE SENT BY MAIL 
IN ENGLAND. 

Many persons will be surprised, doubt¬ 
less, to know that in England a person 
can be sent from one part of the king¬ 
dom to another by mail—just as if he 
were nothing more than a mere letter. 

One day a man called at St. Martin’s 
le Grand with the object of consulting a 
directory and finding the address of a cus¬ 
tomer who lived in a remote part of Bal- 
ham. He was not acquainted with the 
locality, and was most anxious to see his 
customer at once. These facts he men¬ 
tioned to an obliging clerk behind the 
counter. 

He was at once informed that he could 
be sent to*the required address by regis¬ 
tered mail at a fee of 6 cents a mile. The 
man gladly accepted the offer, and in less 
than a minute found himself in charge of 
a smart messenger boy, who very soon 
guided him by the shortest route to his 
destination. 

The hoy carried in his hand a printed 
slip with a description of his “mailed 
parrel” under the heading “Article re¬ 
quired to he delivered,” and this he re¬ 
quired the man and customer to sign be¬ 
fore he left the latter's house. 

It is probable that few people are aware 
of the regulation under which this curious 
postal transaction was accomplished. It 
reads thus: “A person may be conducted 


by express messenger to any address on 
payment of the mileage fee.” 

A RAILROAD IN THE ARCTIC 
ZONE. 

Very few Americans are aware that an 
Arctic railway exists, but it seems that in 
July of 1903 King Oscar of Sweden for¬ 
mally opened for passenger traffic a rail¬ 
road well within the Arctic Circle, running 
from Gellivara, in Swedish Lapland, 
across the divide to its terminus at Nar¬ 
vik, in Norway, on the Ofoten Fjord. A 
line southward from Gellivara to Lulea, 
at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, had 
been working since 1887. The traveler 
who prefers to go by land rather than by 
water can now reach these regions with 
no more serious sea passage than the 
Dover to Calais crossing. 

The line owes its existence, we are told, 
to deposits of iron ore, in the eastern 
portion of Swedish Lapland, of extraor¬ 
dinary richness. The “Malmherg,” or 
ore mountain of Gellivara, yields annually 
something like a million tons of iron ore 
which contains sixty to seventy per cent 
of pure metal. Richer still are the depos¬ 
its of Luossovaara at Kiiruna, where the 
ore is quarried direct from a hill over 
3,000 feet high, and is even of better qual¬ 
ity than that of Gellivara. The quantity 
of ironstone in this hill has been estimated 
at nearly 250,000,000 tons, and now that 
the line is open to the sea it is proposed 
to make this mountain disappear at the 
rate of 1,500,000 tons a year. If this 
takes place, the world will be presented 
in 150 years with a demonstration of the 
kind which it can best appreciate, that 
capital, if not faith, can remove moun¬ 
tains. 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


619 


Mr. Davies says the Arctic Circle in 
Europe is a little bit of a fraud. Except 
in winter the northern districts of Sweden 
and Norway are anything but icy. 
Rugged and infertile they certainly are, 
but the man in search of snow and ice 
can find more of it and reach it more 
easily in Switzerland, in the Tyrol and in 
Spain. The scenery along the line is in 
fact disappointing; the engineer natur¬ 
ally selected the line of least resistance in 
laying, and this of course leads over the 
enormous “Myr” peat moors which sur¬ 
round the Gulf of Bothnia and through 
vast tracts of forest land, the character of 
the country being monotonous, avoiding 
the picturesque portions and merely be¬ 
coming more poverty-stricken as it ap¬ 
proaches the Polar zone. This is true 
principally in Sweden; the Norwegian 
portion of the line, descending to the sea 
level and winding about the precipitous 
cliffs of Ofoten Fjord, passes through 
* scenery as magnificent as anything in 
Norway. 

THE EXTINCTION OF THE LAPPS. 

The immediate results of this new rail¬ 
way, we are told, will be the building 
up of the great iron centres of Gellivara 
and Kiiruna—a population that will be 
dependent on supplies brought up from 
the Gulf of Bothnia or from the Nor¬ 
wegian coast, since the soil is too arid 

CLIMBING 

The first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1904 
was a remarkable feat of Alpine climbing, 
and was made by Herr Hugo Mylius, of 
Frankfort, on February 25. Herr Mylius 
was attended by three guides, and much 


for an agricultural population to supply 
their needs. Another result will be the 
extinction of the Lapps, a nomad race 
at best, half civilized, wholly improvident 
and absolutely without control if liquor 
be within reach. Contact with civiliza¬ 
tion kills out the Lapp, partly by inter¬ 
marriage, by which he is gradually ab¬ 
sorbed in the stronger races, more swiftly 
and completely by a literal killing out. 
The reindeer is the Lapp's chief wealth 
and means of support. He is easily 
tempted to part with his reindeer for 
ready money with which to get liquor, 
and when far gone in drink will sell his 
best reindeer for a bottle or two of 
“brandvin.” In twelve years the reindeer 
in a Lapp district known to Mr. Davies 
have diminished from 37,000 to an ap¬ 
proximate 7,000. The increase of wolves, 
because of the diminishing number of 
Lapps to wage war upon them, is given 
as the reason for the decrease of the rein¬ 
deer. The demand for meat by the miner 
and railroad navvy will cause high prices 
for reindeer, and the result will be their 
steady disappearance. The Lapp, with 
rare exceptions, can live by no animal 
save the reindeer. No other animal can 
subsist on the mosses of Lapland and Up¬ 
per Sweden. Swedish ethnologists allow 
only fifty years for the survival of their 
interesting little neighbor. 

THE ALPS. 

of the ascent, as well as almost the en¬ 
tire descent, was made on skis. The dif¬ 
ficulties were immense, a strong, cold 
wind was blowing, and at times the tem¬ 
perature fell to forty degrees below zero 



620 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


(Fahrenheit). Herr Mylius had a foot 
and hand badly frozen, and a foot of one 
of his guides was also frost-bitten. 

The winter in the Alps was most se¬ 
vere, and the snowfall very heavy, with 
the result that an early and particularly 
wet spring has caused a perfect rear¬ 
rangement of Alpine geography. Those 



Snapshot showing the peril of mountain 
climbing in the Alps. 


trusty pilots of the mountain, the Alpine 
guides, no longer know their own par¬ 
ticular climbing places, for crevasses now 
yawn where formerly solid snow lay. 
Narrow cracks or chimneys that last year 
formed short cuts to elevated plateaus 
have disappeared, and in their places are 
impassable walls of ice. 

Snow bridges that joined ridge to ridge 


have been swept away, and new means 
of communication have had to be found. 

DESTRUCTIVE SNOW SLIDES. 

Vast avalanches have in many places 
changed the whole face of a once familiar 
mountainside. Avalanches, indeed, have 
seldom worked such dire disaster in the 
Alpine districts as during the past spring. 
The loss of life from this cause alone has 
been far above all previous records, while 
the destruction of property has been im¬ 
mense. Whole forests and villages have 
been swept away, families have been bur¬ 
ied alive, while several times entire ham¬ 
lets have been aroused in the middle of 
the night by the alarm of an approach¬ 
ing avalanche, and the inhabitants have 
had to fly in their night attire to places 
of safety. 

About the middle of April there was a 
week of torrential rain, which caused 
many serious disasters, the worst of which 
was the terrible avalanche that swept 
away part of the village of Grengiols, 
near the Rhone glacier, costing thirteen 
lives and injuring seven other persons 
who, though buried beneath the snow, 
were eventually rescued. This avalanche 
of wet snow and mud was estimated to 
be 3,000 feet long, 250 feet wide, and 
varying from ten to twelve feet in depth. 

Within a few hours of this disaster an 
even worse catastrophe took place near 
Turin, where an avalanche descended up¬ 
on a camp of miners at Pracelato, de¬ 
stroying the cabins and burying over a 
hundred men, of whom seventy-five were 
killed on the spot, and several subsequent¬ 
ly succumbed to the injuries they received. 

REGIMENT SWEPT UNDER. 

This was probably one of the most 














EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


621 


fatal avalanches that have ever fallen, 
though on one occasion in 1902 a regi¬ 
ment of Alpine soldiers was carried away 
and buried under an avalanche while man¬ 
euvering on the mountains. On this oc- 


shown by the case of seven Alpine tour¬ 
ists who were carried over the Aroser 
Weisshorn by an avalanche without one 
of the party being injured; while it is on 
record that the late Professor Tyndall 



Dangers of mountain climbing. A final struggle to the top of Sphinx Rock. 


casion the snow was fairly dry, and to 
this fact the rescued men owed their lives. 
It was two hours and a half after the ac¬ 
cident occurred when the work of rescue 
began, and many of the men were buried 
beneath from four to eight feet of snow. 

The curious freaks of avalanches are 


and a party of friends once literally rode 
on an avalanche for a distance of 1,000 
feet without receiving any hurt. 

Zarmatt is already filling with vis¬ 
itors, though there is a great deal of snow 
about. On the Riffelberg the snow is still 
ten feet deep, while on the Gornergrat it 











BOOK Of THE TIMES 


(U2 


is over thirty feet deep in many places. 
The upper mountain railway started run¬ 
ning on June 15 as far as Gornergrat, 
the most elevated mountain resort in 


Europe, and will very shortly run right 
up to the Riffelalp, the view from which 
is considered one of the finest in the 
world. 


DARE-DEVIL PERFORMANCES. 


THRILLING ACTS FOR LITTLE 
PAY AT WORLD’S FAIR. 

In “Old St. Louis,” where a specialty 
was made of daring mid-air feats, the 
manager frankly declared that his enter¬ 
tainment cost but a song and that little 
need be paid nowadays for the average 
aerial stunt. Professor DeLeon slides 250 
feet down an inclined wire by the hair of 
his head for the insignificant salary of $15 
a week, and three times each day James 
and Alfretta Baum risk their lives high up 
in the air, performing on a bicycle and sus¬ 
pended trapeze 122 feet above the earth, 
for something like $13 per risk. A 150- 
foot wire cable supports a bicycle on 
which the husband rides backward and 
forward, while his wife performs on the 
trapeze that hangs below. High up above 
the Pike this spectacle has been seen and 
marveled at by the crowds. 

POWER OF THE TEETH. 

A similar performance was that of 
Senor Cameroni, who made a series of 
sensational slides from the axle-height 
of the Ferris wheel, 150 feet above the 
ground, hanging to a leather trolley strap 
by his teeth, down 2,142 feet of half-inch 
cable to the earth at “New York to the 
North Pole.” This attracted thousands 
to that portion of the exposition grounds, 
as the management had anticipated, but 
few of those in attendance realized at what 
a low figure the feature was contracted 


for. Concessionaires along the Pike state 
that the wire slide can be put on for $25 
a week. 

U. S. LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. 

Notwithstanding the effectiveness of 
Uncle Sam's model life-saving service, 
an element of danger attaches to the daily 
drowning act of Charles Tucker, who 
came from Portage Station, Eleventh 
United States life-saving district, Lake 
Superior, to take part in the life-saving 
exhibit at the fair. Each day Tucker, cos¬ 
tumed as a farmer, rowed into the lake 
north of the Agriculture building and 
pulled a plug from the bottom of his 
bunty. Then he tries to bail out the water 
with his hat, but the boat soon sinks and 
Tucker flounders in thirteen feet of water, 
apparently helpless. Three times he sinks 
in a mock effort to keep himself afloat, 
timing his last sinking to the arrival of 
the life crew from the shore. A member 
dives from the life boat and brings Tuck¬ 
er from the bottom of the lake, to all in¬ 
tents lifeless, but to be quickly resusci¬ 
tated. The regular salary of Uncle Sam’s 
life savers is $65 per month. 

Over on the Pike Edgar Cleary went 
down in a tank of water attired in a deep- 
sea diver's suit, and there broke his air¬ 
line, taking the chances of getting to the 
surface before his breath gave out. He 
was under water six or seven hours each 
day and received $4 for his services. 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AXD CONDITIONS 


623 


A picturesque aquatic feature of the ally went over the horse's head in the 
fair’s great sideshow was the reproduction plunge, and after escaping its hoofs and 
of General DeWet's escape from the Brit- floundering desperately for a few seconds 
ish in the Boer war exhibit. Twice daily in the water the make-believe eeneral 

working on a soldier’s pay of $16 a 
month, emerged and mounts his white 
horse to ride triumphantly away. 



John F. Hassler, steeple-jack, painted the flag-pole which 
surmounts the Philadelphia North American building. 329 
feet in the air, a performance that terrified on-lookers in the 
streets below. He was photographed by a camera enthusi¬ 
ast, located on a roof sixty-four feet below him. 

a young soldier impersonating the gen¬ 
eral took a lofty plunge from a cliff on 
horseback, sinking deep into fifteen feet 
of water, from which the horse and rider 
generally rose separately. The rider usu- 


Floyd Jones risked much in the naval 
battle exhibit each day when, crouched 
inside a miniature torpedo boat, he steered 
to the centre of the mimic Santiago har¬ 
bor and set flame to the fountain of Greek 
fire there. In an instant the flames spread 
over the water, and if James was not 
speedy with his craft he was likely to be 
enveloped in blazing petroleum and chem- 



Mrs. Taylor and her position in which she 
went over Xiagara Falls. 



















































624 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


icals. On one occasion one of the battle¬ 
ships tarried too near the Greek fire and 
inflammable substances in the interior of 
the ship were ignited. Then the audience 
was treated to the sight of an upheaval 
of the forward turret, a man’s head 
emerged and an instant later a man leapt 
from the craft into the water. The secret 


of the miniature fleet's navigation was out. 

Most risky and spectacular of all the 
deeds of Hale's fire fighters was that of 
Hoseman George Phipps, who slid head¬ 
first from the fifth story of a burning 
building to the ground, carrying two 
boys, Eddie Hale and Elmer Phipps, in 
his arms. The rope was wrapped twice 


around a pompier snap on the fireman’s 
belt, and the rope was so controlled with 
one foot that his downward slide was 
stopped when he has reached near enough 
to the ground to drop the boys rescued 
from the flames. For this performance 
the fireman received $100 a month and the 
boys $10 each per week. 


Lizette from Paris leaped the gap in 
truly sensational style outside the Pike 
in dreamland. From a platform forty 
feet high, astride a stout bicycle, she shot 
down a forty-five-degree incline into a 
hollow of the track which threw both bi¬ 
cycle and rider into the air. She sailed 
through the air like a bird going at ter- 



Dare-devil feats. Looping-the-loop twice on a bicycle. 

















EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 



rifle speed, and alighted on a platform alighted but three inches from the edge 
thirty feet away, having leapt a gap of of her platform after making the leap. To 


The Human Slixg. 

A dare-devil exhibit in which the bicycle rider goes down a steep incline, is caught in a sling 
rope, turns over a pole and then continues his journey, the path being 
meanwhile lowered to allow his passage. 

that width in the track along which her have missed the platform would have 
bicvcle flies. meant almost certain death. Lizette took 

She had several short falls and once this risk for $6. 







































626 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The familiar loop-the-loop flourished 
within a walled inclosure in Happy Hol¬ 
low, an outside midway. There two bi¬ 
cyclists took the deadly risk each day, 
darting down a fifty-degree incline eighty 
feet into a boarded loop twenty-three feet 
in diameter. Centrifugal forces cause the 
wheel to follow safely the black line mark¬ 
ing the centre of the track, and all goes 
well. Harry R. Pollay and Jack Smith 
were the star performers, riding many 
times a day for $20, and but one other 
man in the United States is said now to 
have survived this performance. 

Badroo, an East Indian in “Asia,” 


climbed a rope with his toes, and at an 
altitude of nearly seventy feet performed 
feats of daring, hanging by his toes and 
standing out straight from the perpendic¬ 
ular rope, finishing by sliding head-first to 
the ground. 

Herman Bogar supplied a thrill for 
Hagenbeck’s patrons by going into a cage 
of animals and feeding them raw meat 
from his hands. Nothing could excite 
them more. There were in the cage with 
the trainer two lions, three tigers, a 
panther, a puma, a leopard, two polar 
bears, two German boar hounds and a 
great Dane. 


THE WAY UNCLE SAM CELEBRATES THE “ GLORIOUS 

FOURTH.” 


NEARLY 500 LIVES SACRIFICED 
ANNUALLY.— VIEWS OF A LON¬ 
DON WRITER. 

It is certainly somewhat surprising 
that any civilized nation today should 
celebrate a past victory, however glorious, 
in a manner which calls for the annual 
sacrifice of nearly 500 lives, and yet this 
was the result of “observing” the 4th of 
July in the United States in 1903. In 
order to point out the folly of such mis¬ 
called patriotism the writer has gone to 
the trouble of finding out the exact num¬ 
ber of accidents attributable to the cele¬ 
bration of this “Glorious Fourth” last 
year, and the result is somewhat astound¬ 
ing. 

These accidents were almost wholly 
caused through the careless and indis¬ 
criminate use of fireworks (principally 
Chinese crackers) and pistols by children 
too young to know their danger or too 
foolish to regard it. The deaths from 


wounds direct (mostly burns and pistol 
shots) numbered sixty-three, while those 
from tetanus arising from wounds num¬ 
bered 415, a total of 478 lives absolutely 
thrown away in “celebrating” a victory. 
Had these deaths occurred in battle the 
sacrifice would be looked upon as a na¬ 
tional calamity, but being in memory of 
their Independence it is not only regard¬ 
ed as “patriotic,” but almost excusable. 

THE DEADLY TOY PISTOL. 

The cause of the majority of deaths 
was the toy pistol, which has a playful 
way of going off in the hand of the one 
who is using it and inflicting a more or 
less serious wound. Possibly, in many 
cases, the result would not be fatal were 
it not for the fact that apparently there 
are innumerable tetanus germs always 
awaiting the opportunity of crawling 
into such wounds and thus causing nu¬ 
merous and horrible deaths. Indeed, so 




EXTRAORDIXARY AFFAIRS AXD CONDITIONS 


627 


many hundreds of children contract tet¬ 
anus on Independence Day that the dis¬ 
ease is now known as "Fourth of July 
Tetanus" to distinguish it from that aris¬ 
ing from other causes. 

Instead of endeavoring to lessen these 
calamities by prohibiting the sale of fire¬ 
works and pistols to children, the Gov¬ 
ernment is trying to discover an antidote 
for that mysterious disease known to the 
ordinary individual as “lockjaw"; but 
though one or two cases of cure have 
been recorded the results have not ma¬ 
terially lessened the number of victims 
who are sacrificed annually on Independ¬ 
ence Day. 

FIERCE CASUALTIES. 

Apart from the number of lives which 
L'ncle Sam’s great day claims there are 
other accidents which occur, and which 
are only a degree less tragic than the 
deaths. Each year ten people at least are 
rendered totally blind, and today there 
must be several hundreds who are passing 
their lives in darkness owing to this fool¬ 
ish custom of celebrating an anniversary. 
Last year no fewer than seventy-one per¬ 
sons each lost an eye. while fifty-four 


hands and legs were buried without their 
owners. Of fingers, 174 boys and girls 
are now mourning the loss of one or 
more, while the minor injuries treated at 
the hospitals numbered 3,670. Alto¬ 
gether last year's accidents, fatal and 
otherwise, reached the extraordinary 
number of 4.458. 

PROPERTY DESTROYED. 

I11 1902 the accidents were not quite so 
numerous, which shows that, though last 
year parents were particularly warned 
through the press to refrain from encour¬ 
aging their children in the use of fire¬ 
works and firearms, the tragedies of In¬ 
dependence Day are on the increase. The 
average amount of property destroyed 
each year is also considerable, amounting, 
as it does, to half a million dollars, the 
direct cause of which is due to the letting 
ofif of fireworks by children and inexperi¬ 
enced adults. Xo wonder, then, that the 
celebration of Independence Day is re¬ 
garded with apprehension by thousands 
of parents in the United States whose 
patriotism is none the less sincere because 
it is coupled with common sense. 


NOTABLE PECULIARITIES. 


INFANT BODY AND ADULT MIND. 

La Nature is responsible for the state¬ 
ment that a dwarf, Maria Schumann, has 
just died in Bavaria at the age of 28 
years. She passed her whole life in the 
cradle where she slept her first sleep twen¬ 
ty-eight years ago. To the day of her 
death she preserved the height and gen¬ 
eral appearance of an infant of a few 
months, but “her intellect was normally 
developed and nothing could have been 


more curious than to hear this baby in 
the cradle talk like an adult, with vivacity 
and intelligence." 

A GERMAN CHARACTER BOOK. 

To prevent the manufacture of spurious 
recommendations of servants in Germany 
every servant is obliged to keep a char¬ 
acter book, in which necessary entries of 
dates and character descriptions are made 
by the mistress or master. The servant 



628 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


must then take the book to the nearest 
police station and have the record dated 
with the official stamp. 

A CENTURY OF WAR. 

With slight intervals for refreshment 
and rest, the war of the Dutch against the 
Achinese has been going on for more 
than a century; and though the once pow¬ 
erful kingdom of Achin is now confined 
to the northwest corner of Sumatra, the 
natives are still unsubdued. Each expedi¬ 
tion sent against the Achinese, though 
temporarily successful, has been followed 
by little lasting benefit, except that attri¬ 
tion has gradually worn away the ancient 
kingdom. 

This long war, always conducted with 
great ferocity on both sides, now seems 
to have degenerated into a struggle of 
extermination, in which women and chil¬ 
dren share the fate of their sons and 
fathers. The Dutch regard the Achinese 
as barbarians, but little can be said for 
the civilization typified by the Dutch com¬ 
mander who calmly announces as a de¬ 
tail of his victory the slaughter of 281 
women and eighty-eight children. 

Strangely enough, this announcement, 
instead of being suppressed by the gov¬ 
ernment of the Netherlands, is sent broad¬ 
cast over the world, accompanied by no 
adverse comments or a hint of official 
action against the commanding general 
of the expedition. And the Dutch capital 
is the seat of The Hague tribunal, the 
place from which rules for the ameliora¬ 
tion of the conditions of war, its avoid¬ 
ance, and its final extinction, are supposed 
to emanate. 

SATAN’S LEGACY. 

There is only one spot on the earth’s 


surface that has actually been willed, 
deeded and bequeathed to his Satanic 
majesty. This spot lies four miles and a 
half south of Helsingfors, Finland. A 
few years ago Lara Huilariene died in 
the little town of Pielisjarvi, in the above- 
named country, leaving considerable 
property in the shape of landed estate. 
How he had come into possession of so 
much land no one seemed to know, but 
as he was a very bad citizen it was gen¬ 
erally admitted that he was in league with 
Wintahausu (Satan), and that they had 
many business deals with each other. 
This somewhat startling opinion was ver¬ 
ified when among old Huilariene's papers 
a certified warranty deed was found 
which deeded to Satan all his earthly 
possessions. The will was to the same 
effect. The family have repeatedly tried 
to break the will, but so far have been un¬ 
successful ; thus the records plainly show 
that his sulphuric majesty has a legal 
right and title to some excellent ground 
in the near vicinity of Helsingfors. The 
simple people of the neighborhood have 
changed the course of the road which 
formerly skirted the Huilariene home¬ 
stead and declare that they would not 
enter the possessions of Satan & Co. for 
all the money that the three estates would 
bring. 

WICKEDEST OF UNPUNISHABLE 
CRIMES. 

Tbe men who pleaded guilty to having 
loaded life-preserver cork with iron, de¬ 
mur to the indictment because the stuff 
was sold in open market, not to the gov¬ 
ernment. Thus they escape because there 
has been no legal penalty set for such a 
crime. 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


029 


The charge against those men exceeds 
in diabolism any atrocity perpetrated by 
the vilest felon in any penitentiary in the 
United States. It would be an insult to 
other criminals in confinement to compel 
them to associate with a creature so base, 
so utterly depraved, so unspeakably 
wicked as to load life-preservers with 
iron. When one reflects that the crea¬ 
tures who have pleaded guilty to this in¬ 
dictment are men of substance and fair 
social standing, it adds, if possible, to 
the universal feeling of horror and wrath 
with which they are regarded. There 
ought not to be a community in this or 
any other civilized country in which such 
wretches could find even semi-respectable 
associates. And the legal profession 
would not suffer in public estimation if 
such fiends were compelled to accept de¬ 
fenders on assignment by the court. 

But it appears that there is serious 
penalty provided by law T for the hitherto 
unheard of crime with which these de¬ 
fendants are charged, so that, if they 
should be convicted they could not be 
punished as felons. If this is true, it 
must be that the absence of adequate pro¬ 
visions is due to the fact that lawmakers 
have not dreamed of the possibility of 
such a crime. As there can be no abso¬ 
lute perfection in human government, it 
happens not unfrequently that provisions 
absolutely necessary for the preservation 
of liberty by the protection of individual 
rights serve as a protection to scoundrels 
against the hand of justice. Prohibition 
of retroactive legislation is an indispens¬ 
able safeguard. But in a case like this, 
good citizens cannot help regretting the 
impossibility of reaching the scoundrels 


by ex post facto law-making. Doubtless 
Congress will enact a statute to fit any 
future cases of this description; but for 
the credit of humanity, it should be hoped 
and expected that no repetition of this 
indescribable, this intolerably loathsome 
thing will ever happen. It is bad enough 
that the annals of the human race must 
carry even one such story. 

A NOVEL PLEA TO THE U. S. 

SUPREME COURT. 

A Chinaman named Lee Look is under 
sentence of death in a California, jail. He 
was tried for murder and duly convicted, 
and there does not appear to be any doubt 
of his guilt. His victim was a fellow 
Chinese, not a white man, and this cir¬ 
cumstance is responsible for one of the 
most ingenious and remarkable points 
ever made a ground for appeal in a crim¬ 
inal case. 

Lee Look had his case carried up to 
the United States Supreme Court, set¬ 
ting up the objection to the conviction 
and sentence that in the original indict¬ 
ment if was not averred that the victim 
of the alleged murder was a human be¬ 
ing, and that there was nothing to show 
that he was not a dog. Of course, the 
name of the murdered Chinaman was 
given in the indictment, but in the opin¬ 
ion of Lee Look and his attorney it was 
not a name which necessarily excluded 
the possibility mentioned. 

The Supreme Court dismissed the ap¬ 
peal the other day for want of jurisdic¬ 
tion ; that is, the point was not one that 
could properly be raised under any pro¬ 
vision of the federal constitution. The 
effect of this ruling is to affirm the death 
sentence, and the merit, technically 




630 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


speaking, of Lee Look’s curious ground case, the omission of the averment that 
for reversal may never be determined, the victim was a human being was an 
On the part of the prosecution in the extraordinary one. 

MIRACLES IN WOMEN’S FINGERS. 


“Women have at least one sense which 
men do not possess,” says Prof. Otis T. 
Mason, of the Smithsonian Institution. 
“It might be called the mirror sense, in¬ 
asmuch as it enables them to see them¬ 
selves without a looking glass, and 
even gives them a sort of consciousness 
of what is behind them. Beyond this they 
have a kind of vision in their finger tips, 
as one might say, the sense of touch being 
to them almost a form of sight. 

“Women are constantly working small 
miracles. Take for example the tying of 
a knot in a thread with the fingers of one 
hand. A woman does it off-hand and as 
a matter of course. That there should be 
any difficulty about it never occurs to her 
until some man comments with astonish¬ 
ment upon the feat which she so uncon¬ 
sciously executes. Then she, in her turn, 
expresses surprise at learning that he can¬ 
not do the same thing himself. Why, it 
is nothing! She cannot remember the 
time when she could not tie a knot with 
one hand. The thing to her is mere in¬ 
stinct. 

“Instinct means inherited experience, 
and women have a lot of it. The young 
lady who threads with such wonderful 
ease the needle which has no eye that you 
can find is exercising a faculty which has 
been handed down to her through a thou¬ 
sand generations. She is not merely her 
mother’s daughter, but the child of a long 
line of grandmothers running back to the 
Age of Stone and beyond. 


BEAT EGGS FOR AN HOUR. 

“This same girl can beat raw eggs in a 
bowl for an hour without tiring in the 
least. You offer to relieve her and in five 
minutes your wrist is so lame that you 
find it almost impossible to continue the 
task. Of course, lacking practice, you 
waste energy, but the chief disadvantage 
under which you labor is that the muscles 
of your arm are not adjusted properly for 
wielding a spoon in that fashion. The 
young woman's forebears on the distaff 
side have been cooks for at least 100,000 
years, and therefore it is that she is ana¬ 
tomically modified, so to speak, for beat¬ 
ing eggs. 

“A woman may almost be said to see 
with her hands. To the dry goods clerk 
she says, ‘Let me see that piece of goods,’ 
but when it is placed before her she feels 
it with her fingers, hardly looking at it. 
She puts up her back hair, smoothly and 
beautifully, without seeing it at all, 
though when it is finished she contem¬ 
plates the result in a looking glass. No 
mere man could accomplish such a feat, 
which may be said to illustrate the posses¬ 
sion by the female of our species of a very 
peculiar faculty—a faculty that might ap¬ 
propriately be called the mirror sense. 
To a certain extent, apparently, a woman 
can see herself without looking in the 
glass. 

NOT SO WITH MEN. 

“To a man the whole art of pinning 
things is a mystery. Apparently there 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


631 


can be nothing to it beyond the insertion 
of the pin and the passing of it in and out 
of the pieces of fabric which are to be 
temporarily and mutually attached. Any 
fool can do that, and it is noticeable that 
the male person does the job in a careful 
and even scientific fashion, which ought 
to represent the highest degree of effect¬ 
iveness. But somehow it doesn't. The 
pin comes out, and ‘cuss words’ are liable 
to follow. ‘Oh. John, let me!’ says the 
man’s wife. She takes the same pin, and, 
without making any apparent use of the 
divine gift of reason, inserts it. She does 
not even begin at the natural place of be¬ 
ginning. but executes a sort of overband 
movement, takes a species of double-hitch, 
and with a wriggly thrust the thing is 
done. It holds as if it were sewed. 

“The hairpin, of course, is only a modi¬ 
fied pin, made double. As every one 
knows, it is a woman’s favorite utensil— 
a whole tool box, in fact. It is to her a 
master-key to all mechanical problems. 
She buttons her shoes with it, trims 
lamps, opens letters—but the list of its 
capabilities is too long for ready recital. 
It is the universal feminine implement, 
and is made to serve even for cleaning the 
tobacco pipe of the inadequately appre¬ 
ciative husband or brother. 

MAKES BOTCH JOB. 

“It is an admirable tool, but where is 
the man who is able to use it? In his 
hands it is as valueless as a sewing ma¬ 
rine in the possession of a naked savage. 
To him even the art of pinning hair with 
it is a puzzle. Let him try, if his lady 
love is willing to submit to the foolish ex¬ 
periment. and see what a failure he makes 
of it. Though he may do his best, with 


an unlimited number of hairpins, scarce 
two locks will hold together. 

“How is it that a woman is able to tie 
a ribbon bow and that a man cannot? 
He can make a bow out of ribbon, of 
course, but it is an altogether different 
article—a product essentially masculine. 
She gives the ribbon a couple of twists 
with her fingers, adds two dexterous 
jerks and a pat to right and left, and lo! 
the miracle—it is nothing less from your 
point of view or mine—is accomplished. 
You could not reproduce it to save your 
life. 

“I might add—for it is another curious 
freak of adaptation, illustrating the dif¬ 
ferentiation of the sexes’ capabilities—that 
the kind of a bow a man ties is almost 
equally a mystery to a woman. She can¬ 
not for the life of her imitate it satisfac¬ 
torily, and, occasionally, for the orna¬ 
mentation of her own dress, she will per¬ 
suade one of her male friends to make 
such a ribbon knot for ber. Though it is 
really an inferior article, she likes it be¬ 
cause it is different from the sort of bow 
she knows how to make. 

“Speaking of making knots reminds 
me of an Eskimo woman I once met, 
who, for my edification, tied in her mouth 
a short piece of string into a bow-knot, 
using for the purpose neither of her 
hands, but merely her tongue. The 
tongue, of course, is an organ of touch 
much more sensitive than the finger tips, 
and with its aid the squaw was able to 
wriggle, the end of the cord in and out 
until at length she took the string from 
her lips tied into perfect bow-knot shape. 

CLEVER WITH NEEDLE. 

“But, to return to civilized existence, 



632 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


did you ever marvel at the cleverness of a 
woman who, sewing a bone button on a 
piece of cloth, hits one of the holes every 
time with her needle from the back side 
of the fabric? If you were performing 
the task you would strike the button and 
not an opening three times out of four, 
and, when by chance you did get through 
an aperture it would be nearly always the 
same one. But the lady, without giving 
any conscious attention worth mention¬ 
ing to the problem in hand, almost never 
hits the button, and her thread goes 
through the holes impartially. 

“When we try to discover a reason for 
the manifest superiority of the gentler 
sex in matter such as these, we should 
realize that women were originally the 
industrial sex. They were the first tail¬ 
ors, the first cobblers, the first tanners, the 
first butchers, the first basket makers, the 
first weavers, the first millers and the first 


farmers. To mere man there was noth¬ 
ing left save the pursuits of war and the 
chase, which were about all he would con¬ 
descend to attend to. Thus, all through 
the history of mankind, women have been 
the conservers of the arts, and what they 
have learned in the course of ages of ex¬ 
perience they have been unable to forget. 

“But these are minor feats. There are 
many other things, wonderful from the 
masculine viewpoint, which women do 
every day as a matter of course. To call 
them miracles is not so very inappro¬ 
priate, considering the utter inability of 
the sterner sex to reproduce them. Phil¬ 
osophically speaking, they should proper¬ 
ly be considered as marvels wrought by 
beings who, in certain important respects, 
at all events, are very decidedly our su¬ 
periors, and well equipped, if we would 
only believe it, to serve as our guides and 
teachers.” 


FACTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST. 


WHEN THE BLIND SEE. 

Professor Latta of Glasgow tells of a 
man who, having suffered from cataract 
from his birth, recovered his sight at the 
age of thirty. The patient before the 
operation was unable to distinguish ob¬ 
jects, though he could tell daytime from 
night, and could locate a light. “For 
about ten days after the operation the pa¬ 
tient appeared dazed and could not realize 
that he was seeing,” says Professor Latta. 
“The size of everything in the ward 
seemed very much exaggerated, and on 
that account he had very great difficulty 
in interpreting what he saw. 

“The first thing he actually perceived 
was- the face of the house surgeon. At 


first he did not know what it was, but 
when the doctor asked him to look down, 
the sense of hearing guided his eve 
straight to the point whence the sound 
came, and thence, recalling what he knew 
from having felt his own face, he realized 
that this must be a mouth and that he 
must be looking at a face.” He was en¬ 
tirely ignorant of color, but learned to 
distinguish hues very quickly. 

As he looked out of a high window he 
felt as if he could touch the ground with 
a stick. He did not retain his faculty of 
moving easily about in the dark. Before, 
he could guide himself fearlessly through 
a ward, but now, says the physician, he 
has lost all that feeling of confidence, and 




Rifles carried by the Japanese Infantry in the war with Russia. 


































































BOOK OF THE TIMES 


<>34 


when his eyes are shut he is afraid to 
move, and is impelled to open them to 
ascertain where he is going. 

EXTENT OF SPOKEN LAN¬ 
GUAGES. 

There are 382,000.000 Chinese speak¬ 
ing the same language, making Chinese 
the most spoken language. There are 
many dialects, however, which seem 
scarcely to belong to the same tongue. 
The inhabitants of Mongolia and Tibet 
can barely understand the dialect of the 
people in Pekin. Other widely spoken 
languages are as follows, in millions: 
English, 120; German, 70; Russian, 68; 
Spanish, 44; Portuguese, 32. 

IN BARBAROUS TIBET. 

According to Jameson Reid, who re¬ 
cently traveled through the country, it 
would be impossible to imagine a people 
more unenlightened and barbarous than 
the native population of northeastern 
Tibet. He says that they are but a grade 
removed from the animals. At one of 
the villages his party was honored at a 
sumptuous banquet and the gluttonous 
appetites displayed by the natives seemed 
to know no limit. Each diner consumed 
vast quantities of food and washed the 
same down with great draughts of tea 
and other native drinks. Mr. Reid was 
puzzled to know where they stored all the 
material they had eaten and contents him¬ 
self with the remark that the problem of 
a Tibetan's stomach would trouble a pro¬ 
fessional mathematician, adding that the 
chief avocation of the Tibetan, when for¬ 
tune permits, is the enjoyable business of 
eating. 

“During many months,” says Mr. 
Reid, “spent among Tibetans—to say 


nothing of their manners, excluding 
women from all companionship at their 
meals, dipping their hands up to the elbow 
in one dish, eating sheep’s insides and 
sleeping in miserable tents or stone dwell¬ 
ings crawling with vermin—I never in 
a single instance noticed temperance or 
frugality, except from necessity, for in 
their nature they are gluttons and will eat 
at any and all times till they are gorged 
of whatever they can get and then lie 
down and sleep like brutes. I have some¬ 
times amused myself by testing their ap¬ 
petites. Instead of scorning tainted or 
unfit food, they will devour it with avid¬ 
ity, even with the full knowledge that 
they must pay dearly for this inconti¬ 
nence. 

“One of the strangest customs of these 
Djun-Ba Tibetans is that attending death 
and burial. When a man dies the nude 
body is attached to a stake driven into the 
ground and exposed to the attacks of 
ravenous beasts and birds. Nothing 
could be more ghastly than to happen 
upon one of these grewsome landmarks, 
from which flocks of carrion vultures rise 
slowly into the air with hoarse croakings. 
The bones and other remains left after 
the attacks of the birds and beasts are cre¬ 
mated, the ashes placed in sacred bowls, 
mixed with magic charms and hung up 
in the tent or dwelling or else buried be¬ 
neath an obo of stones. A little of the 
dust is placed in small bags and these are 
worn round the necks of the family as 
preventive of disease.” 

INTERESTING FACTS CONCERN¬ 
ING THE HUMAN BODY. 

1. Every day there passes into and out 
of the lungs about 400 cubic feet of air. 




EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


635 


2. Each outgoing breath renders im¬ 
pure 5,000 cubic inches, that is, about 
half a barrel, of air. 

3. It is said that a normal skin ab¬ 
sorbs one-sixth as much oxygen as the 
lungs. 

4. The body pours out through the 
skin about two pints of perspiration each 
day. 

5. During each year about one and a 
half tons of material pass through the 
human body. 

6. The skin covers an area of twenty 
square feet perforated by about 7,000,000 
perspiratory ducts or pores. 

7. There is in the body of a man 
enough iron to make a dozen tacks, 
enough phosphorus to make a half dozen 
boxes of matches, and enough hydrogen 
to fill a balloon that would lift him. 

8. There are in the human head about 
120,000 hairs. 

9. The heart beats at an average of 
seventy-five times a minute. 

10. The blood stream moves at the 
rate of seven miles an hour, 168 miles a 
day, 61,320 miles a year. In the body of 
a centenarian the blood has traveled a dis¬ 
tance of 6,132,000 miles. 

THE MOST ACCURATE TIME¬ 
PIECE IN THE WORLD. 

A watch or clock, no matter how care¬ 
fully constructed, may gain or lose a frac¬ 
tion of a second, hut there are 600 stars 
in the heavens that are infallible. For 
this reason the United States government 
furnishes facilities for the regulation of 
time-pieces by the stars. The time-cor¬ 
recting apparatus is in the Goodsell Ob¬ 
servatory at Northfield, Minn. 

A few minutes before 9 p. m. the of¬ 


ficial observer takes his place before a big 
telescope, which has a series of parallel 
wires across the opening nearest the eye. 
The centre wire is so fixed that it is in 
unison with the meridian. When the 
particular star chosen for the determina¬ 
tion of the time begins to cross the tele¬ 
scope field, and reaches the first wire, the 
observer communicates with the tele¬ 
graph operator in another room, and the 
signal to get ready to mark the time is 
sent out over nearly 12,000 miles of wire, 
into every part of America. When the 
star crosses the centre wire, which de¬ 
notes the meridian, the observer notes it 
to a hundredth part of a second, and this 
observation is hashed over the telegraph 
lines instantaneously. 

To secure an exact “check" between the 
crossing of the star and the official record 
the observer holds in his hand a movable 
telegraph key attached to a wire running 
out into the operator’s room, where it is 
connected with a chronograph, or time 
writer. This machine assists of a 
cylinder of white paper, over which a pen 
moves automatically in unison with a 
clock. Every time the clock ticks it jars 
the pen, making a slightly jagged line on 
the roll of paper. 

When the star crosses the line the ob¬ 
server presses the telegraph key, thus 
making a record on the chronograph, 
which is compared with the record the 
clock has been making during the day. 
The two records are examined with a 
microscope, and if the clock is off a hun¬ 
dredth part of a second it is corrected. 
It is undoubtedly the most correct time¬ 
piece in the world. 

The same operation is gone through 
with at 10 a. m. There are also distribu- 





636 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ting centres for time connected daily with 
the Goodsell observatory. The naval ob¬ 
servatory at Washington receives the 
signals over a special wire, and acts as 
the centre of the time service. 

Washington university in St. Louis 
sends the time corrections to the railway 
systems of the Southwest. Allowing for 
slight and unavoidable variations caused 
by changes in temperature within a given 
hour the clocks of the country regulated 
by this system are kept as correct as 
human ingenuity is able to make them. 

WORLD’S QUEER CUSTOMS. 

In Lapland, the crime which is pun¬ 
ished most severely, next to murder, is 
the marrying of a girl against the express 
wish of her parents. 

In Armenia, children are not allowed 
to play with dolls. It is feared that if 
this were permitted the little ones would 
learn to worship them as idols. 

Many old houses in Holland have a 
special door, which is never opened save 
on two occasions—when there is a mar¬ 
riage or a death in the family. 

A Cuban baby is baptized when it is 
two weeks and a day old at the very la¬ 
test. A Cuban baptismal party would not 
think of walking to church, even though 
the building be next door. 

One of the curious social laws of Peru 
forbids women to attend funerals, and 
they do not appear at weddings (except 
as one of the principals), unless they are 
very intimate friends of the contracting- 
parties. 

Japan has 200,000 registered cases of 
leprosy. There is no pity or compassion 
for the lepers. Man or woman, young 
or old, they are turned adrift on the high¬ 


ways, homeless wanderers, dependent for 
' subsistence upon casual doles of food 
thrown to them from afar. 

The making of shoes for dogs has now- 
developed into quite a big industry, and 
is especially flourishing in Labrador. The 
dogs attached to sledges travel at great 
speed over the rough ice, and some pro¬ 
tection for the feet is necessary. The 
shoes are made of sealskin. 

Palestine is a land of flowers. Botan¬ 
ists tell us that there are 2,500 different 
kinds. 1 he Eastern sun gives the colors 
a brightness they seldom have in our hazy 
clime. J he wild flowers are somehow 
localized, so that acres, and, indeed, miles, 
take their hue from a single flower. 

Keeping a tobacco shop in France is a 
position greatly coveted by gentlewomen 
in reduced circumstances. The sale of 
tobacco being a state monopoly, the gov¬ 
ernment generally bestows the right to 
keep a bureau de tabac on the widows and 
daughters of officers and government of¬ 
ficials. 

SACREDNESS OF MOSLEM. 
GRAVES. 

In I urkey a Moslem grave, when once 
it has been filled in, is never to be re¬ 
opened on any account. With a view to 
remove the faintest chance of a grave 
being thus defiled, the Moslems plant a 
cypress tree on every grave immediately 
after the burial, thus making their ceme¬ 
teries resemble forests. 

They have curious methods in Persia 
of insuring law and order. A failure of 
the crops had resulted in a dear loaf, 
which much enraged the populace. In 
order to quell the tumult, the Shah or¬ 
dered a number of bakers to receive sev~ 



EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


637 


eral hundred strokes with a rod, besides 
a few minor little attentions, such as the 
amputation of an ear or two. 

“Miss” is a title with which we brand 
unmarried women to indicate that they 
are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) 
and Mister (Mr.) are the three most dis¬ 
tinctly disagreeable words in the lan¬ 
guage, in sound and sense. Two are cor¬ 
ruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. 
In the general abolition of social-rank 
titles in this country they miraculously 
escaped to plague us. If we must have 
them, let us be consistent and give one to 
the unmarried man. 

WHAT THE STONE BALLS MEAN. 

In ancient times it was the custom of 
the victors in a battle to decorate their 
doorposts with the skulls of the van¬ 
quished. With the advance of civiliza¬ 
tion, Britons, of course, no longer carry 
it out, but the custom has not been al¬ 
lowed to drop altogether, as is seen by 
the stone balls which are often set on 
gateposts—a relic of a barbarous idea of 
long ago. In certain parts of Africa the 
skulls are still used as decorations; whole 
villages may be seen with the doorposts 
of the houses surmounted in this grue¬ 
some fashion. 

VACCINATING THE GROUND. 

That the soil can be vaccinated to cure 
its barrenness, with the same result that 
attends the vaccination of the human 
body to cure certain ills, would appear 
preposterous to the casual mind, but this 
is exactly what is done, according to an 
intensely interesting article entitled “In¬ 
oculating the Ground,” by Gilbert H. 
Grosvenor, in the October number of the 
Century Magazine. In the most simple 


language he describes how, by a process 
of inoculation, the nitrogen, so necessary 
to fruitful land, is put back into the soil 
which is robbed of it by wheat and many 
of the other grain crops, and v endered 
unproductive by reason of the robbery. 

Even a skeptic reading Mr. Grosve- 
nor’s article must be impressed by it, and 
at the end of the story see visions of vast 
tracks of now barren fruit lands in the 
eastern part of this country reclaimed and 
fruitful. Probably the most pleasing 
thing about the whole matter is that the 
nitrogen germs so necessary to the soil’s 
productiveness are furnished free by the 
Agricultural Department, the letters pat¬ 
ent having been presented to the govern¬ 
ment by Professor Dr. George T. Moore, 
in charge of the laboratory of plant physi¬ 
ology of the department, who discovered 
how to practically utilize nitrogen germs. 

But Dr. Moore was the real discov¬ 
erer of the germs. It has been known for 
many years that the air we breathe con¬ 
tained all of the nitrogen so necessary to 
the soil, and it was known that certain 
plants, like the clovers, bean and pea, did 
not impoverish the soil as some of the 
grains did. It remained for Professor 
Nobbe, a German scientist, to discover, 
as Mr. Grosvenor declares, that the bean 
especially takes its nitrogen from the air 
and that it absorbs more than it needs, 
and actually enriches the soil with the 
surplus supply. 

BACTERIA IN PLANTS. 

Then he found that all of these plants 
had bulbs, or round tubercles*or nodules, 
attached to the roots, as if an insect had 
bitten them. He dissected one of these 
bulbs and found it filled with bacteria that 



638 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


worked incessantly, absorbing nitrogen 
from the air to feed the plant. 

Then the professor successfully culti¬ 
vated these bacteria, and a German com¬ 
pany was actually formed to supply them 
to farmers in bottled form. They did not 
live because they had been too well fed 
by the professor, says Mr. Grosvener, and 
hence were not used to working for them¬ 
selves. In the soil they died. The com¬ 
pany stopped manufacturing. 

Professor Moore cultivated a self-re¬ 
liant disposition in his nitrogen bacteria. 
He did not overfeed them, and they began 
to seek their nitrogen food themselves. 
Having obtained permanent bacteria, he 
found a bit of cotton would soak up mil¬ 
lions of them. Then he dried it, and in 
this form it is sent to the farmer, who is 
directed to soak the cotton in a solution 
of water, granulated sugar, potassium 
phosphate, magnesium sulphate and am¬ 
monia phosphate. The solution is then 
mixed with earth, so that every particle 
of the earth is moistened. It is then mixed 
with five times the quantity of earth and 
scattered over a barren field, vaccinating 
it with nitrogen germs that multiply and 
cause bountiful crops. One small pack¬ 
age, it is said, will inoculate one to four 
acres. 

TRACKLESS DESERTS OF THE 
OCEAN. 

Oceans, like continents, have their des¬ 
erts. On the high seas there are vast 
spaces whose waves have never been 
parted by the prow of a sailing vessel or 
lashed by the propeller of a steamer—im¬ 
mense solitudes where the flap of a sail 
is never heard nor the strident crv of a 
siren; veritable deserts, whose silence is 


broken only by the howling of the wind 
and the roar of waves which have been 
vainly pursuing one another since the day 
of creation. 

These deserts lie forgotten betwixt the 
narrow ocean highways traveled by ves¬ 
sels. In such waste places of the sea a 
disabled ship, driven out of its course by 
a hurricane, may drift for months, tossed 
by the ceaseless ground swell, without 
being able to hail assistance; her only 
chance of escape is the possibility that 
some oceanic current may drag her into 
a more frequented region. 

It is generally supposed that by reason 
of the universal increase of maritime 
traffic the sea is everywhere furrowed by 
vessels. That is a mistake. 

The gradual but constant disappearance 
of sailing ships made the ocean more of 
a desert than before. Sailing vessels had 
their established routes in accordance 
with winds, currents and seasons. 

This is no longer true today. The 
liner goes straight ahead in defiance of 
wind and wave. The ocean highways are, 
therefore, anything but numerous. The 
most frequented of oceans is the Atlantic. 

Apart from Polar seas there is but one 
desert zone in the Atlantic—a dreary 
waste of waters between the routes from 
Europe to the United States or Canada 
and those from Europe to the Antilles. 
In the south, between the routes from 
South America or the western American 
coast and the routes from South Africa, 
extends a desert occasionally traversed by 
the steamers of the lines from Cape Town 
and Mozambique, which, when the coffee 
season is at its height in Brazil, cross the 
Atlantic for cargoes at Rio Janeiro or 
Santos. 




EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIRS AND CONDITIONS 


639 


The Indian ocean is frequented only in 
the north by lines out of India and Indo- 
China, and a little in the west by liners 
from Oceanica, which call at Colombo 
and then make straight for Australia. 

Two lines, each with a steamer a 
month, follow a slender lane from Aus¬ 
tralia to Cape*Town. The Pacific is the 
Sahara of the great seas. Saving only 
the steamships from the far East to Cali¬ 
fornia and British Columbia, a line from 
Sydney to San Francisco and a one-horse 
line (with sailings four or five times a 
year) between Tahiti and the United 
States—save for these mere ribbon-like 
streaks the Pacific is a desert. 

BIBLES IN MANY TONGUES. 

Three hundred million copies of the 
Bible have been printed in a century. 

The British and American Bible So¬ 
cieties alone circulate some 8,coo,ooo 
copies a year. Forty per cent of the cost 
is recovered from sales. 

Often the payments are made in curi¬ 
ous substitutes for money, such as cowry 
shells in Uganda, copra and arrow-root 
in the New Hebrides, swords, daggers, 
sandals, amulets, straw hats, pieces of 
silk, eggs, butter, rotten cheese, dogs’ 
teeth, sea-birds’ eggs and other pic¬ 
turesque circulating material. Occasion¬ 
ally, even, Bibles are stolen. 


Something like 2,000 colporteurs and 
Bible-women travel in all manner of out¬ 
landish places, “by railroad, carriage, 
boat, bullock wagon, sleigh, bicycle, 
wheelbarrow, on mule, jinrikisha or 
afoot,” to distribute Bibles. 

Bibles must be packed in water-tight 
parcels to be landed through the surf in 
Madras; they are made up in fifty-six- 
pound packages to fit coolies’ backs in An¬ 
na m. 

A century ago the Bible was printed in 
forty languages. It is now printed in 
450, and new ones are being added every 
year. Sometimes languages are practi¬ 
cally made by the Bible—that is to say, 
it is the first book printed in some ob¬ 
scure tongue, so rude that it does not 
even contain words enough to express 
thought. 

Take, for example, the translation just 
made for the Sheetswa tribe in East Af¬ 
rica. They had no word for Supreme 
Being, or home, father, heaven, house and 
other ideas equally fundamental. Other 
recent translations have been into Mare, 
Persian, Uganda, Labrador-Eskimo, 
Kongo-Baldo, Wedan, Fang, Madarese 
and Nogugu. 

c 

And there are said to be on the borders 
of the Indian Empire alone 108 lan¬ 
guages in which there is no Christian 
Scripture printed. 










BOOK IX 



STRANGEST 
OF STRANGE EVENTS 

AND FACTS 


WITH VARIOUS 

Astounding Happenings from All Parts of the 
World, Illustrating the Oddities and 
Peculiarities of Human Society 


A MIRROR OF ASTOUNDING EVENTS FROM ALL QUAR¬ 
TERS OF THE GLOBE, IN THEIR SIGNIFICANCE 
AND RELATION TO HUMAN AFFAIRS 


























Strangest of Strange Events and Facts. 

SINKING EARTH AND BOTTOMLESS PITS. 


HE unusual catastrophe of a 
road bed giving way under a 
carriage, sinking out of sight 
and swallowing up the car¬ 
riage with a woman occupying it, hap¬ 
pened a short time ago near the village of 
Newberry in southern Florida. 

The woman, who was a traveling drug 
seller, having finished her work at New¬ 
berry, concluded to visit the near-by phos¬ 
phate mines in the interests of her busi¬ 
ness, and to convey her to the mines pro¬ 
cured a two-horse livery carriage with a 
negro driver. 

The drive, which is a pleasant one, hade 
continued without incident for several 
miles when, in passing through a sink 
locality, the roadbed suddenly became 
shaky and then sank into water, the 
woman, carriage, horses and driver sink¬ 
ing with it. The driver, however, heed¬ 
ing the first warnings of the danger to 
which they had been so unexpectedly ex¬ 
posed, sprang from his seat and cut the 
traces of the horses struggling up the 
sinking bank, and both he and the horses 
were saved. About an hour after the 
submergence the carriage was pulled out 
of the hole with its lifeless occupant upon 
the seat. 

FIRST LIFE LOST. 

This is the first human life that has 
been lost in this way in Florida. Cows 
and other domestic animals, however, are 


frequently swallowed up by the earth sink¬ 
ing under them in the Newberry region. 

But close approaches to fatal results 
from earth bottoms dropping out are of 
occasional occurrence in this state. 
Doubtless the most remarkable one of 
these on record was the falling in of a 
section of railroad bed near Gainesville 
in August, 1804. The sinking occurred 
while a freight train was passing over the 
place. The hole formed was forty feet 
deep. The locomotive had crossed the 
place before the ground gave way, but 
four of the cars went tumbling into the 
pit. That none of the train men were 
hurt or killed seemed almost miraculous. 

The sinking of the earth, as occurring 
at Newberry and Gainesville, forms what 
are known as sink holes, and they are 
caused by the falling in of caves in lime¬ 
stone rock. The bedrock of the Florida 
peninsula is Eocene limestone. This rock 
was formed at a late period of geological 
time, and is softer and much more porous 
than that of the older limestone forma¬ 
tions. It is quite pervious to water, is 
cracked and fissured, and in many places 
honeycombed with cavities, caverns, 
water courses and other evidences of 
eroding action. The rock-wearing con¬ 
stantly going on within a limestone cave 
may so greatly weaken the roof that it 
can no longer support the weight of rock 
and earth upon it, and it will fall in, 
forming a sink. 



643 

















BOOK OF THE TIMES 


G 44 


Some sinks contain water and some are 
dry. Those containing water usually 
have subterranean outlets, which carry 
away water that may run into the holes 
from springs in their banks, floods from 
rains and sometimes streams of consid¬ 
erable size flowing from lakes. 

THE “BOTTOMLESS PIT.” 

The “Bottomless Pit,” a sink in Orange 
county nearly 350 feet deep, whose water 
level is thirty feet below the water level 
of a large near-by lake, doubtless has an 
outlet in the Atlantic ocean or Gulf of 
Mexico to carry away the water flowing 
into it from numerous springs in its 
mouth. Into another sink in the same 
county, near Orlando, a large stream of 
water disappears, the overflow from more 
than a dozen lakes. The outlet to this sink 
became plugged about two months ago, 
and all efforts to remove the obstruction 
thus far have failed. The water has, 
therefore, taken overland routes and has 
spread over several hundred acres of the 
surrounding country, covering fruitful 
fields and backing under houses. The 
“colored” suburb of Jonestown, near the 
sink, seems likely to become engulfed, 
and the sable inhabitants, frightened and 
mystified at the coming of another flood 
upon the earth, contrary to God’s rainbow 
promise, are leaving the place for higher 
and drier habitations. 

In the Newberry region sinks serve in¬ 
cidentally a valuable purpose. Phosphate 
mining is carried on very extensively 
here, and a great deal of water is pumped 
into the phosphate washers where the rock 
is cleaned for market. The neighboring 
sinks carry away the dirty water from 
the washers. It first flows into flats and 


hollows, and these overflow into the 
sinks. 

Sometimes in sink forming the drop is 
only a few feet, and the mouth is widened 
at the top, forming a conical hole. In 
some cases there is a clear drop of from 
thirty to fifty feet, leaving a hole like a 
deep well. The water of such sinks usu¬ 
ally becomes clear shortly after falling-in 
occurs, indicating that the falling ground 
fell into flowing water. The original set¬ 
tlers of the Newberry region built their 
houses near these natural wells to save 
the expense of digging for water. 

POPOCATEPETL SOLD FOR 
$500,000. 

Years ago—a generation back—a 
youth graduating from the Military 
Academy in the City of Mexico was con¬ 
vinced by the teachings of the great 
Alexander von Humboldt that the crater 
of the giant, snow-capped volcano, Popo¬ 
catepetl, contained large deposits of 
sulphur. 

The possibilities of such a deposit ap¬ 
pealed to him with striking force. The 
volcano is not active enough to be dan¬ 
gerous, so to mine it would not be dif¬ 
ficult. Sulphur is one of the most val¬ 
uable products of the earth; it could be 
sold at an enormous profit. 

The youth—by name Gaspar Sanchez 
Ochoa—was bold enough to ask the gov¬ 
ernment for a concession. 

War came and interrupted the negotia¬ 
tions. Ochoa joined the Republicans un¬ 
der General Diaz and served them sral- 
lantly. When the conflict was ended, 
Ochoa, then a general, was asked what re¬ 
ward he would like to have. 

“Give me Popocatepetl,” he replied. 






STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


645 


No sooner had he asked for it than the 
volcano was deeded to him. 

The gift made young Ochoa celebrated 
as “the man who had a volcano on his 
hands.” Now that he had it, what could 
he do with it? the people asked. 

Undismayed, he prospected his moun- 


Ochoa is an old man now. Having 
made up Ins mind to retire from business, 
he sold his volcano to a syndicate of 
American capitalists for $500,000. 

They are going to turn Popocatepetl 
into the loftiest and most picturesque 
health and pleasure resort in all the world, 



Popocatapetl, the great Mexican volcano, sold to an American syndicate for half a million 
dollars. Its crater is an inexhaustible sulphur mine. 


tain, 17,520 feet high, and, as he believed 
he would, found millions of tons of sul¬ 
phur. Then he hired natives to dig the 
sulphur out and carry it down to the base 
in baskets—and, within a dozen years or 
so, he found himself a millionaire. Year 
by year his friends, who had smiled at his 
strange possession, saw him pile up more 
and more dollars. 


and,, at the same time, convert its crater 
into the most valuable sulphur mine. 

The crater is estimated to contain 148 - 
000,000 tons of sulphur which increases 
at the rate of 1 per cent a year. 

FOUND IN ODD PLACES. 

One of the officers on Colonel Young- 
husband’s staff writes to a friend that 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 


64G 


they are frequently finding objects which 
are strangely out of place. A few months 
ago, when they were at Khamba jong, 
this officer picked up a pair of gloves 
bearing the name of a well-known Lon¬ 
don maker; while in the Tang Pass a 
private picked up a small, well-thumbed 
English dictionary, with a carte-de-visite 
of a young Englishman pasted on the 
flyleaf. 

Quite a curious chapter might be writ¬ 
ten on those two finds were it possible to 
discover the owners*of the lost property. 
They indorse, at any rate, other out of 
the way finds. 

Sir Henry M. Stanley, the great ex¬ 
plorer, had in his library at Richmond 
Terrace, Whitehall, many curious finds 
which he came across in his wanderings 
across the dark continent of Africa. One 
is a silver-plated fork bearing the name 
of a fashionable London restaurant. This 
fork was found in a part of Africa which 
had never before been trodden by the foot 
of a white man till Stanley had broken 
the record and arrived there with his little 
band. A pigmy, whose tribe was un¬ 
known till then, was wearing the fork 
around his neck as an ornament. 

Emin Pasha in his memoirs relates that 
one of the greatest glories of an Abyssin¬ 
ian chief he knew was a George III wig. 
which adorned the chief’s head on very 
special occasions. How he came by it 
was a mystery even to Emin Pasha him¬ 
self. The headpiece bore the name of a 
London maker. 

A sergeant in the Manchesters, who 
was present at the fall of the native fort 
at Chitral when the English captured it, 
picked up a money-lender's circular of 
comparatively recent date. How it 


found its way to that distant region of 
India will ever remain a mystery. 

The royal mother—the ex-Empress 
Eugenie, who is still living—after the 
first pang of her great sorrow was over, 
inquired of her late son’s brother offi¬ 
cers if the Zulus had taken a keepsake 
which the prince was wearing around his 
neck at the time of his death. This keep¬ 
sake was a religious emblem known as 
Agnus Dei. It had been taken. 

Soon afterward a great British victory 
was won and some hundreds of the dusky 
warriors were taken prisoners. Quite 
by accident a British officer discovered, 
suspended around the neck of a Zulu, the 
missing emblem. It was taken from the 
man and sent at once to the childless 
empress, in whose possession it now rests, 
and forms her greatest/ treasure 

BULLET HOLE IN BRAIN; MAN 
MENTALLY SOUND. 

With a bullet hole through both lobes 
of his brain, Frederick Bock, who shot 
himself July n, 1904, is in the city hos¬ 
pital in Newark mentally sound. He will 
leave the hospital in a few days and the 
physicians say he will never feel any ill 
effects from the wound. 

Bock's case has only one precedent— 
that of a man whose brain was pierced 
with a crowbar and was treated success¬ 
fully. 

According to the surgeons attending 
Bock there never has been a case where a 
man’s brain has been pierced that the 
sight or mind was not affected. 

POLICEMEN WHO MARRY THEIR 
PRISONERS. 

Some years ago a well-known author 
wrote an interesting “shilling shocker” 




STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


647 


in which the beautiful heroine is accused 
of murder. The official who arrests her 
falls desperately in love with his pretty 
prisoner, and after the young lady has 
been found guilty, sentenced to death, re¬ 
prieved at the last moment, and finally, 
through the timely remorse and confes¬ 
sion of the real culprit, is set free “with¬ 
out a stain on her character,” the courte¬ 
ous detective (really a man of high fam¬ 
ily who has joined the “force” as a cure 
for ennui) pops the question, is accepted, 
and the two are made one in the last para¬ 
graph. This delightful romance has re¬ 
cently had its prototype in real life, prov¬ 
ing the correctness of the old adage that 
truth, minus the embroidery, is every bit 
as strange as fiction. 

The lady in the present instance is, or 
rather was, Miss Lilian Thomasch, of 
New York, who recently had a terrible 
experience in the Bronx, an outlying dis¬ 
trict of the city. She was walking one 
evening near 163rd street with a Mr. 
Charles Roxbury, whom she had known 
for fifteen years, when a negro stole up 
behind them and, with a heavy club, felled 
Mr. Roxbury to the ground. Miss 
Thomasch fled screaming and sought 
refuge in a house three streets away. 
Roxbury staggered home and died a few 
hours later without speaking. 

As soon as the murder became known 
Luke F. Gordon, a policeman attached to 
the Tremont station, was sent to arrest 
Miss Thomasch, and during the week fol¬ 
lowing he kept the young lady under sur¬ 
veillance, taking her many times to court 
to give evidence before the coroner and 
District Attorney Jerome. Gordon ap¬ 
pears to have been immediately struck by 
Miss Thomasch's undoubted good looks 


and refinement, and though it was stated 
by the prosecution that she was withhold¬ 
ing valuable evidence, Gordon always de¬ 
clared that she was hiding nothing. 

When ultimately Jackson, the negro 
who had assaulted Mr. Roxbury, was 
caught, Gordon was again chosen as the 
one to conduct Miss Thomasch to and 
from the court house for the purpose of 
giving further evidence. Jackson was 
found guilty, sentenced to death, and 
finally electrocuted at Sing Sing. At the 
time of the murder Gordon’s wife was 
living, but she died soon after the trial, 
and subsequently the policeman proposed 
to Miss Thomasch and was accepted. 

Mrs. Gordon was “interviewed” soon 
after the wedding, when she informed a 
reporter that until she met her husband 
she always disliked policemen. “I never 
had a high opinion of police officers,” 
she said, “and, in fact, was more or less 
prejudiced against them. Mr. Gordon 
was the most polite policeman I ever met, 
and he treated me with such unusual 
courtesy that I naturally fell in love with 
him, and now we are very happy.” 

AN INCIDENT IN ENGLAND. 

There is at the present time in the 
British police force in the North an offi¬ 
cer who first met his wife under circum¬ 
stances which one would hardly expect to 
lead to the altar. This official was one 
day on duty outside a big department 
store, when a salesman dashed out and in¬ 
formed him that his presence was re¬ 
quired in a case of shop-lifting. The 
young officer entered the shop, where he 
was commanded to arrest a modestly-at¬ 
tired young woman, who was accused of 

• 

stealing a small piece of lace. She had 



048 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


been searched and the property found on 
her, so there was nothing to be done but 
take her to the station. She looked so 
very young and appeared so frightened 
that the officer kindly dispatched a mes¬ 
senger for a cab, and into this he quietly 
bundled the young woman and conveyed 
her to the police-court, where she was 
duly “charged.” It was conclusively 
proved that she had undoubtedly stolen 
the lace; indeed, she pleaded “guilty,” 
but as it was a first offense she was given 
the “option” of a fine of £2 or a week's 
imprisonment. As the money was not 
forthcoming she was taken below, but half 
an hour later it was paid and the girl lib¬ 
erated with a caution. 

It afterwards transpired that the police¬ 
man who had arrested her had paid the 
money, and as soon as the girl discovered 
this she made inquiries, found out where 
he lived, wrote him a letter of grateful 
thanks, and returned the money. In this 
way the acquaintance, begun under such 
adverse circumstances, ripened into 
friendship, and in less than three months 
the two were married—the alliance prov¬ 
ing an unusually happy one. 

AN INCIDENT IN THE UNITED 
STATES. 

At one of the United States prisons the 
chief warden is married to a young wo¬ 
man who for three years was an inmate 
of the convict station. She had been 
charged with insurance frauds, and being 
found guilty was sentenced to imprison¬ 
ment for five years in the “second degree." 
Though the evidence appeared to be flaw¬ 
less, there were many who believed her to 
be innocent, and these people were not 
surprised when, three years later, the mys¬ 


tery was cleared up by the confession of 
her brother, on whose behalf she had 
knowingly suffered disgrace. 

Meanwhile, the warden, having taken 
an interest in the case, had managed to 
make her life a little easier in prison by 
granting her several trifling concessions, 
\\ hich she was not slow to appreciate. 
When the girl received her “pardon” it 
was the warden who read it over to her, 
and as he shook hands he told her that if 
there was. anv way by which he could 
serve her she was to let him know. The 
ex-prisoner took him at his word, and a 
few weeks later wrote asking permission 
to visit some of the unfortunate women 
whose acquaintance she had made during 
her imprisonment. Of course her request 
was granted, and the warden himself con¬ 
ducted her to the cells. 

This was the first of many visits, and 
when, some six months later, the warden 
delicately hinted that she might be of even 
greater comfort to the prisoners if she 
would take up her permanent residence at 
the warden’s house she consented to do so, 
and today she is the comfort and hope of 
hundreds of women and young girls who 
are doing various terms of imprisonment 
in the convict establishment over which 
her husband rules. 

WOMAN OR MAN? 

A remarkable case came before Mr. 
Francis at Westminster, in England, 
when a prisoner having the appearance 
of a little old man, described as Catherine 
Coombes, sixty-eight, painter and deco¬ 
rator, was charged with being drunk and 
disorderly. 

Defendant was really dressed in male 
attire, and she carried a bowler hat and 





STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


049 


small black bag. She made the statement 
that she had worked as a painter and on 
board ship, and had passed as a man for 
half a century. 

Constable Grey said defendant, whom 
he believed to be a man, complained that 
“lie” had lost his bag. Defendant was 
drunk, and was taken to the station, 
where she created much surprise by say¬ 
ing that she was a woman, and she added, 
“I’ve been a good woman, too, in my 
time” (laughter). 

Prisoner : I was not drunk. 

Detective Tanner said the police wished 
for a remand. 

Mr. Francis: Yes. When an old wo¬ 
man is going about in man's clothes it 
is good ground for making further in¬ 
quiry. It would be interesting to know 
whether she went to prison as a man or 
woman. 

Prisoner was then remanded, and failed 
to find bail in £20. 

The strange career of this woman is 
well known to the police. About four 
years ago she walked into Rochester row 
station (Westminster) attired as a man 
and smoking a briar-root pipe. She as¬ 
tonished the inspector on duty by an¬ 
nouncing the fact that she was a woman 
who had been about forty-five years in 
male attire. She said that she had been 
known as Charles Wilson, and that she 
had worked on board ship. She had been 
married as a woman at the age of fifteen 
to one Percival Coombes, and very many 
years afterwards she married as a man a 
woman with whom she lived for fourteen 
years at Huddersfield. She also stated 
that she had found employment at the 
docks and in a printing office. 


OHIO YOUTH HAS NEVER 
ALLOWED ANIMAL FOOD 
TO PASS HIS LIPS. 

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, at Battle Creek, 
Michigan, physician in chief of a local 
sanitarium, who is one of the most noted 
advocates of vegetarianism in the world, 
has been gathering statistics and has dis¬ 
covered one person who has never eaten 
meat in his life. 

The person is Hubert H. Bretz, a 16- 
year-old boy, of Celina, Ohio. Dr. Kel¬ 
logg has received a letter from the boy’s 
mother in which she says that her son 
has never eaten meat, chicken, turkey, 
oysters, or even eggs, the taste of which 
he does not know. He will not eat broths 
flavored with meat. From infancy he 
showed an abhorrence for meat. When 
a child the mother would put potato over 
a piece of meat and try to deceive him, 
but he always ate the potato and rejected 
the meat. When he grew older the 
mother attempted to hire him to eat meat, 
but to no purpose. All the rest of the 
family are meat eaters. 

Contrary to the prophecies of the physi¬ 
cians that he would be sickly and deli¬ 
cate. he has enjoyed the best of health and 
has never been ill more than one week 
in his life. He is an athlete and fond of 
outdoor sports, being captain of the high 
school football team and the baseball nine. 
He is intelligent, a good scholar and has 
won many prizes as an elocutionist. 

The boy weighs 140 pounds and is five 
feet eight and one-half inches in height. 
He has never had any of the illnesses in¬ 
cident to childhood, such as measles, 
whooping cough, etc., while his sister, who 
is eleven years old and a meat eater, has 




650 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


had all of these diseases, and he remained 
in the house with her all the time. 

There are many non-meat eaters in the 
world, but all others gave up eating meat 
after reaching a certain age. 

Mrs. Bretz, the mother, writes that the 
boy’s diet is principally potatoes, which 


must be cooked without grease. Mashed 
or baked is his favorite method of prep¬ 
aration. He could eat potatoes three times 
a day and never asked for anything else. 
He eats plenty of bread and navy beans. 
He cares nothing for pastry and eats little 
fruit. 


A RUSSIAN HORROR. 


The town of Blagoviestchenk has at¬ 
tained unenviable notoriety by the epi¬ 
demic of crime which raged there during 
March and April of 1904, and which cul¬ 
minated in the following horror: 

A tailor named Ruibnikoff, of Kalmuck 
origin, had for a long time been sub¬ 
jected to persecution on account of his 
curiously Japanese appearance. Twice 
when innocently walking on the banks of 
the Amour, he had been arrested by Rus¬ 
sian sentries as a spy; and these blunders 
gradually created a genuine belief that he 
was in Japanese pay. Besides this his 
windows were broken, his children boy¬ 
cotted by their schoolfellows, and one 
evening he was seized by masked men, 
stripped and ducked through a hole in 
the ice. 

Finally, the tailor's house was set on 
fire and the unfortunate man went out of 
his mind. His landlord, fearing the loss 
of his property, gave Ruibnikoff notice; 
other landlords’refused to let their houses 
to such an undesirable tenant, and at last 
the whole family was turned out home¬ 
less into the street. 

Secretly they sought shelter in the town 
hall. When the caretaker returned at 
night he found the door barred, and, hear¬ 
ing voices inside, summoned the police 
to help him to break in. 


A large crowd collected in the street. 
Just as the door was yielding a child’s 
body came hurtling through the air, and 
fell with a thud upon the pavement. Hor¬ 
rified, the people looked up and saw the 
demented tailor force his son of eleven 
over the parapet. Then in quick succes¬ 
sion were hurled to death an eighteen- 
year-old daughter, a baby son, and Ruib- 
nikoff’s wife. 

Having at last gained the roof, the po¬ 
lice seized the murderer, but slipping his 
coat, Ruibnikoff with a great spring 
cleared the parapet and fell headlong in 
the middle of the street. 

A MAGNETIC STORM. 

As the British ship Mohican made for 
the Delaware breakwater July 3 [, 1904, 
it encountered a strange phenomenon. A 
cloud of phosphorus enveloped the vessel, 
magnetizing everything on board. Cap¬ 
tain Urquhart tells the story and the crew 
vouch for the details. 

“I noticed a strange gray cloud at a 
distance, and watched it as it came closer. 
The vessel and crew were given a fiery 
coating before the sailors saw it,” said 
the captain. “They rushed about the deck 
in consternation. I looked at the needle 
and it was flying around like an electric 
fan. I ordered several of the crew to 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


651 


move the iron chains lying on the deck, 
thinking that it would divert their atten¬ 
tion. 

“But the sailors could not budge the 
chains, although they did not weigh more 
than seventy-five pounds. Everything 
was magnetized, and chains, bolts, spikes, 
and bars were as tight to the deck as if 
they had been riveted. The cloud was 
so dense that it was impossible for the 
vessel to proceed. I could not see beyond 
the decks, and it appeared as if the whole 
world was a mass of glowing fire. 

“The frightened sailors fell on the 
decks and prayed. The hair in our heads 
and beards stuck out like bristles. We 
noticed that it became difficult to move 
arms and legs. 

“Suddenly the cloud began to lift. The 
phosphorescent glow of the ship and crew 
began to fade. Gradually the magnetism 
of the steel died. At the same time the 
stiffness left our hair. In a few minutes 
the cloud had passed over the vessel and 
we saw it move off over the sea. 

“I never before encountered a cloud 
like that. It must have been composed of 
some magnetized substance which was 
combined with phosphorus.” 

INSANITY COMMUNICATED BY A 
LUNATIC. 

Apparent proof that insanity may be 
communicated, like hydrophobia, is shown 
by a case which attracted much attention 
among physicians at Bellevue hospital. 
The subject, Nellie Halpin, a trained 
nurse, was bitten on the hand by an insane 
patient in the Kings County Sanitarium. 

After that the wound frequently gave 
Miss Halpin great pain and never com¬ 
pletely healed. About two months later 
she began to show signs of mental dis¬ 


turbance. These grew longer, and fin¬ 
ally her friends had the young woman 
removed from her home to the hospital. 
She suffered severe convulsions resem¬ 
bling the manifestations of rabies, while 
the mental delusions were almost contin¬ 
uous till her death. 

STRANGE TRAGEDY OF OLD MEN. 

John Gomersoll, aged about eighty, met 
James Brennan and Henry Gould, both 
over seventy, and blind, in Kewanee, Ill., 
and accepted their invitation to spend the 
night with them at their home in the 
neighboring village of Neponset. 

The three old men had been acquainted 
for many years. So far as known, the 
relations between the two blind men and 
Gomersoll had been entirely friendly. 
The village marshal of Neponset, pass¬ 
ing the blind men’s house that evening, 
saw the three engaged in conversation 
and apparently on the most friendly terms. 

About 4 o'clock the next morning 
Brennan aroused a neighbor, saying that 
he and Gould had captured a burglar in 
their house. On reaching the place the 
neighbor found Gould sitting on a chair, 
under which lay Gomersoll, his hands 
tied, and so severely injured that he died 
without being able to tell his part of the 
story. 

The two blind men persisted that they 
took their guest for a burglar, and set 
upon him in that belief. The coroner’s 
jury, not unreasonably in view of the 
strange circumstances, held Brennan and 
Gould to the grand jury, and they were 
lodged in jail at Kewanee. 

Whatever the courts may find to be the 
facts, upon any theory of them, the case 
is certainly one of the strangest in crim- 



G52 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


inal annals. Four explanations naturally 
suggest themselves: 

Gomersoll may have attempted to rob 
his hosts and been caught in the act. He 
may have arisen in the night for some in¬ 
nocent purpose and had his intentions 
fatally misunderstood by his sightless 
companions. Or he may have been the 
victim of a secretly cherished enmity, of 
which the cause was so old that he had 
forgotten if he ever knew it, but which 
had finally entrapped him to a long medi¬ 
tated revenge. Or some trivial quarrel 
may have brought the tragic conclusion. 

Whatever the truth, the novelist who 
should draw such a scene as that deadly 
midnight struggle in the darkened house 
between three old men on the brink of 
the grave, and two of them blind, whether 
he ascribed to them motives of fear, or 
hate, or greed, or represented their con¬ 
duct as motiveless and merely the product 
of error, would find his picture discred¬ 
ited by most readers as horribly impos¬ 
sible. 

Yet what would be disbelieved if pre¬ 
sented as fiction is merely bald fact re¬ 
corded in the ordinary commonplace 
police annals of an Illinois country town. 
That truth is indeed stranger than fiction 
would ever dare be is again illustrated 
by Neponset’s strange tragedy. 

KISCHENEFF MASSACRE OF 
JEWS. 

During the Easter holidays of 1903 
the massacre of Jews at Kischeneff, Rus¬ 
sia, which shocked the civilized world, 


took place. At least sixty were killed and 
over a hundred wounded. In addition, a 
considerable part of the Jewish quarter of 
the city was wrecked by bloody rioters. 
Deeds of appalling cruelty were perpe¬ 
trated. 

Large sums for the relief of the sur¬ 
viving victims were raised, most of the 
contributions coming from the United 
States. 

In behalf of Americans, the B’nai B’rith 
Order formulated a petition to the Czar 
and asked the United States Government 
to transmit it through diplomatic chan¬ 
nels. Upon inquiry, the Russian Govern- 
ernment declined to receive it on the 
ground that it would be interference in 
the internal affairs of the Empire. The 
petition sets forth that the Jewish victims 
were attacked from race and religious 
prejudice; that the local officers were 
derelict in the performance of their du¬ 
ties; that millions of Jews—Russian sub¬ 
jects—dwelling in southwestern Russia 
are in constant dread of fresh outbreaks; 
that the westward migration of Russian 
Jews, which has proceeded for over 
twenty years, is being stimulated by these 
fears, and already that movement has be¬ 
come so great as to overshadow in mag¬ 
nitude the expulsion of the Jews from 
Spain and to rank with the exodus from 
Egypt. 

.After trial, only comparatively short 
terms of imprisonment were given the 
persons accused of complicity in the Kis¬ 
cheneff massacre. 


REMARKABLE FAMILY STRIFE. 

The strife and discord of a family di- troduced by Mrs. Constance Richardson, 
vided against itself was disclosed in Judge in a fight for the right to visit her chil- 
Holdom's court room in the evidence in- dren. Mrs. Richardson’s brother, Wil- 




’rkish troops reoccupying a Macedonian village after routing the insurgents. “The Cross descends, thy Minarets arise.” View of Turkish 

massacre of Christians. 













654 


BOOK OP THE TIMES 


liam Pelham, took the stand and testified 
as to the unfitness of his sister to visit her 
children, who live with their father, Wil¬ 
liam Richardson, from whom she is di¬ 
vorced. 

Her story declared that she had been 
supplanted in her husband’s affections by 
her own sister, Agnes, whom Richardson 
took on trips with him to Milwaukee and 
other cities. It declared that since Mrs. 
Richardson’s cousin. Miss Frances Rich¬ 
ardson, had supplanted both, and is now 
keeping house for Richardson on the 
South Side. 

ENTIRE FAMILY IN FEUDS. 

It showed a father condemning a 
daughter, whom he termed “villainous,” 
and a son-in-law, whom he called a 
“scoundrel.” It showed sister fighting 
sister, brother fighting sister and father, 
father fighting son and daughter, and 
wife fighting husband in the divorce court. 

This remarkable state of affairs was 
brought to light as the result of a series 
of eight letters written by the elder Pel¬ 
ham while the Richardson divorce trial 
was in progress and just before he killed 
himself over the differences which parted 
the Richardsons. 

Mrs. Richardson introduced the letters 
to refute the testimony of her brother 
given last week. It was set forth that 
her brother was against her because Mrs. 
Richardson in a dispute over their 
mother’s estate some years ago had main¬ 
tained that her father should be given 
$15,000 which the will directed. 

CALLS BROTHER AN ENEMY. 

"Your brother is your enemy as he is 
mine,” ran a letter Pelham wrote to his 
daughter from Albany, N. Y. “As for 


me, he is welcome to remain so to the 
end.” 

Other letters written by the elder Pel¬ 
ham to relatives from Des Moines and 
other places gave an insight into Rich¬ 
ardson’s life while the divorce case was 
pending. 

“I have an anxious duty to perform 
here,” said one Des Moines letter, “try¬ 
ing to get witnesses together for my 
daughter’s case, which comes off soon. It 
is simple justice to a poor, persecuted 
daughter, who has a scoundrel of a hus¬ 
band and a home broken up by a villain¬ 
ous sister, Agnes. 

“I denounce the daughter who is wrong 
for the one who is right,” was another 
abstract read. 

To Mrs. Nellie Thatcher of Boston the 
elder Pelham wrote: 

“Richardson went to Chicago recently 
and took Agnes to Milwaukee and other 
places. I have his movements down to a 
fine point. He has sent me word my son 
will take the stand and prove me the worst 
man in Des Moines. I say let him come.” 

WOMAN ASSERTS POVERTY. 

Instead of being able to afford such 
luxuries as paint and powder and high 
French heels, Mrs. Constance N. Rich¬ 
ardson asserted to Judge Holdom that 
she had often been at the point of starva¬ 
tion, and that she had to depend upon the 
charity of her friends to get food. Six 
hours Judge Holdom listened to testimony 
produced by Mrs. Richardson to show 
that she is a proper person to be allowed 
the privilege of seeing her three children. 

She also denied the statements of an¬ 
other witness against her to the effect that 
she used paint and powder in great quan- 




STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


655 


tities, and wore French high heels that 
were “vulgar.” 

USE OF COSMETICS DENIED. 

Several of Mrs. Richardson’s friends 
were in court to swear that she never used 
cosmetics to excess, as also to tell of their 
high estimation of her character. As for 
the high heels, Mrs. Richardson was pre¬ 


pared to deliver a broadside. She had 
an “expert” on hand who was to explain 
to the court the difference* between heels 
that are vulgar and those that are not. 
But Judge Holdom headed this testimony 
off by declaring that since the last hear¬ 
ing of the case he had conducted a private 
investigation and was well versed in up- 
to-date feminine foot toggery. 


PSYCHIC PHENOMENA. 


A sermon preached at the East Broad¬ 
way United Brethren Church of Detroit, 
July 31, 1904, by its regular pastor, 
tbe Rev. W. C. Shupp, one of the city's 
most substantial and conservative minis¬ 
ters, has created a tremendous sensation. 
His subject was: “Revelations from the 
Lord through Ernest Case.” 

Case, it will be recalled, is the man 
whose spiritual visions startled press, pul¬ 
pit and public alike during the month of 
July. He said in part: 

“The vast panorama of heaven and hell 
God has permitted Ernest Case to gaze 
upon. I have tested this man in every 
conceivable manner. He never misses 
anything in general and seldom a minor 
detail. He is not a religious fanatic, and 
never took much interest in religion. His 
warnings from visions were terrible—hor¬ 
rible. He thoroughly destroys and pre¬ 
cludes every argument that would indi¬ 
cate this phenomena could be attributed 
to any other than divine causes. 

DIRECT MESSENGER OF GOD. 

“I am forced to believe that God has 
drawn a veil over the five senses of this 
man, temporarily, and developed his spir¬ 
itual sense in such a manner that he speaks 
as the direct messenger from God. I 


tested him, a plain, uneducated man, care¬ 
fully. With eyes closed, so ill he could 
not rise from his bed normally, I would 
cause the Bible to be removed from be¬ 
neath his pillow and hidden in dark, out- 
of-the-way places. Suddenly, with eyes 
closed, he would point to me, or whoever 
took it, slowly rise, walk with eyes closed 
direct to where the Bible was hidden, 
seize it, mutter a prayer, then collapse. 

“I am in a hard place this morning, 
but must do my duty. What I saw, what 
others saw, we must believe. He can tell 
what and who a visitor is as soon as he 
comes near the house. He read to me 
revelations of past lives of many whom 
he did not know till I begged him to de¬ 
sist. 

“He is calm, cool and collected. He 
says he is always guided by two lights 
which lead him. 

DESCRIBES HEAVEN AND HELL. 

“He told manv visions of heaven and 
revelations of hell. The latter place is 
where the victim is kept in a constant ter¬ 
ror of some terrible danger—no literal 
fire. He receives and translates wonder¬ 
ful messages. ' He says—and I am now 
convinced it is true—that God has selected 




656 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


this man of all to warn the world to re¬ 
pent. 

“He told 'wonderful things of the 
planets and their past. His ability to find 
that Bible surpasses all knowledge. He 
can read the most abject stranger at once 
through and through and has revealed 
some startling local characters.” 

Pastor Shupp also stated that he made 
a careful investigation of the man's early 
history and his every-day life. Case is 
general foreman for the Massillon Bridge 
Company. Among ether big contracts of 
which he had charge was the Eads bridge 
at St. Louis. 

MOST WONDERFUL MAN. 

“Here." said the minister, “his employ¬ 
ers inform me that they were astounded 
at the work of the man. He had under 
him about 150 of the hardest men to con¬ 


trol that were perhaps ever together on 
one piece of work. He had absolute con¬ 
trol over them and never had occasion to 
reprimand them. 

“But the most wonderful feature of this 
job was that, when the plans were shown 
him at the office, he looked them over 
carefully and never again referred to 
them, not even footing up long columns 
of measurements and adjustments. This 
all came to him in some unaccountable 
manner through the entire contract. 

“Ernest Case declares ‘the judgment 
will not come in this generation, but that 
it will not be many years, and that sin 
will increase until this planet will be 
burned out as have been the moon and 
sun, so vile did they become. 

“Case regards universalism and hypoc¬ 
risy as the great error and crime of the 
world. An angel told him that. 


TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION BETWEEN A WELL- 
KNOWN AUTHOR AND HIS DOG. 


A NOVELIST CLAIMS TO HAVE 

WRITTEN A NOVEL COMMU¬ 
NICATED BY A SPIRIT. 

Rider Haggard, the novelist, has raised 
the interesting question of telepathic com¬ 
munication between men and animals in 
a long letter to the Times. Pie describes 
how on the night of July 9, 1904, his 
wife roused him from a nightmare, a 
dream that a black retriever dog belong¬ 
ing to his eldest daughter was lying dead 
in water beside some brushwood. The 
dog was trying to speak to him, and, fail¬ 
ing, transmitted to his mind in some un¬ 
defined fashion it was dying. 

The next night the dog was missed. 
Eour days later it was discovered in a 


river a mile away. It evidently had been 
killed by a train on a railway bridge. 
Other evidence shows that it was killed at 
exactly the hour of his nightmare. Rider 
Haggard does not attempt to explain the 
phenomenon, which is being considered by 
the Society for Psychical Research. 

LIVED IN ANCIENT ROME. 

Another novelist, Airs. Campbell Praed, 
is also puzzling the occultists by averring 
that her latest novel, “Nyria,” is a reve¬ 
lation of a young unmarried woman who 
remembers her previous existence, nearly 
2,000 years ago. as a martyr under Do- 
mitian. Sitting together in a hotel in a 
foreign country, Mrs. Praed held the 
girl’s hand. Then the girl would go into 




STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


657 


a sort of dream existence. She assumed 
a different identity, and spoke of scenes 
and events of which she had not the 
slightest recollection when she returned to 
normal consciousness. 

By chance during one of these dreams 
the conversation turned on old Rome, and 
the girl, sinking back in the chair, with 
her eyes closed, told an amazing tale 
about experiences in a former existence. 

GIRL RECITES STORY. 

“The girl,” says Mrs. Campbell Praed, 
“was Nyria, and the story is Nyria's. not 
mine. I could not have invented it, could 
not have supplied the detail and local 
color, which experts pronounce perfect. 

“She knows no language but English, 
yet she gave with absolute accuracy the 
titles of various princes and functionaries 
about the court—titles which, so far as 
I know, have only appeared in a book 
which never has been translated into Eng¬ 
lish/’ 

NOTED POET-DRAMATIST HAS 
EXPERIENCES. 

Stephen Phillips, well known poet-dra¬ 
matist, author of “Paolo and Francesca” 
and “Herod,” has been having an experi¬ 
ence which he thinks the Psychical Re¬ 
search Society should set about investi¬ 
gating. Mrs. Phillips recently leased a 
detached house in Engham, a sleepy up¬ 
river town near Windsor. 

“I went there for peace and quiet,” he 
said, “and yet, although many people 
knew my purpose, nobody had the pluck 
to tell me that the place had the reputa¬ 
tion of being haunted. 

“We found it out pretty quickly our¬ 
selves. My household and I no sooner 
had been installed in the place than the 


uncanniest noises conceivable beset us 
There were knockings and rappings, foot¬ 
falls, soft and loud; hasty, stealthy hur¬ 
rying and scurryings and sounds as of a 
human creature being chased and caught 
and then strangled or choked. Doors 
banged and were opened and closed un¬ 
accountably, as if by unseen hands. I 
would be sitting quietly in the study, writ¬ 
ing, when the door would open sound¬ 
lessly. That in itself was enough, in the 
dead of night, to a man with his imagina¬ 
tion aflame. It was susceptible of expla¬ 
nation, however. ‘It is only a bit of a 
draught,' I would say to myself as I held 
my breath and watched. But draughts 
don't turn door handles; and, on my life, 
the handle would turn as the door opened, 
and there was no hand visible. 

“This happened repeatedly. All the 
household heard the sounds and experi¬ 
enced the same sensations. 

“My little daughter reported having 
seen a little old man creeping about the 
house, but there was no such person to 
be found. 

“In light of the story I afterwards 
heard, this is important. What was the 
story? Well, all the details are unprint¬ 
able, but it is common property in Eng¬ 
ham, and the Psychical Research Society, 
if they believe in ghosts, will doubtless 
find that incidents of it dovetail sugges¬ 
tively into our experiences. 

“What you can say is that, according 
to common report and local tradition, an 
old farmer strangled a child fifty years 
ago in the vicinity of our house at Eng¬ 
ham. This tradition I learned, mind you, 
after, and not before, the experiences. 

“If there really is a ghost on the prowl 
it explains a lot. 




G58 


BOOK OB THE TIMES 


“Needless to say, we threw up our lease 
of the residence and got out of it like a 
shot. The servants left so precipitately 
that they did not even take their boxes, 
and so you may imagine how scared they 
were. The house has not had a tenant 
since, and I learn that before my .advent 
it rarely, if ever, was occupied. 


“A man of reasonable intellect, I am 
open to any reasonable explanation of our 
experiences. Indeed, the house continues 
‘to let,’ and is still reported to be haunted. 
I should be quite glad if some respectable 
body, such as the Psychical Research So¬ 
ciety, would endeavor to clear the mat¬ 
ter up.” 


MIRACULOUS STIGMATA OR LIGHTNING-MADE 

PICTURE. 


Abbott Parker, a painter by trade, was 
walking along the streets of Morristown, 
N. J., during a severe thunder shower. 

As he reached Mount Kemble avenue 
and stopped beneath a huge maple tree 
a broad sheet of lightning stretched over 
the sky, a deafening peal of thunder fol¬ 
lowed, and those watching the stonu from 
the windows of their homes noted that 
Parker had fallen and was lying, appar¬ 
ently unconscious, in the ditch at the road¬ 
side. 

He was picked up and carried to the 
home of Theodore Armstrong. Medical 
aid was summoned, and Parker was re¬ 
moved to All Souls’ hospital and placed 
under the care of Dr. J. B. Griswold. 

An examination disclosed an extensive 
burn on the back, which, at the time, re¬ 
sembled an ordinary burn similarly 
caused. The surface of the back above 
the waist was covered with pink blotches, 
but there was hardly a line visible. 

STARTLING DISCOVERY. 

Shortly afterward the Gray Nuns of 
the hospital were bathing the burned sur¬ 
face of Parker’s back in alcohol and wa¬ 
ter, when they were startled to find that 
there was appearing, as though beneath 
the skin, a picture of the crucifixion drawn 


in lines of livid red. And even while they 
watched and marveled the drawing took 



Stigmata of the Crucifixion. 


definite form and appeared as a miracle 
before their eyes. 

I hey sank to their knees in prayer, 
convinced that the presentiment was no 
less than a modern miracle wrought to 
strengthen the faith of weaklings and 
doubters. They summoned the mother 
superior and the physician and all noted 
the phenomenon. 






STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


659 


Dr. Griswold was at first of the opin¬ 
ion that the picture had been tattooed 
upon the back of the man. But during the 
excitement caused by the strange appear¬ 
ance an expert tattooer was employed to 
make an investigation and he emphatically 
announced that the picture was not the 
result of tattooing. Parker, also, though 
he refused to give the story of his life 
in detail, denied that he ever had sub¬ 
mitted to the needle and the pigments of 
the skin decorators. 

And so the phenomenon remains unex¬ 
plained. Numerous explanations have 
been advanced and refuted. Above the 
bed on which Parker has been lying since 
having been taken to All Souls’ hospital, 
is a sculptured presentment of the cruci¬ 
fixion which in general outlines has ap¬ 
peared in duplication upon the burned 
back of the man. But this coincidence 
does not in any way lesson the mystery. 

The Gray Nuns, who conduct All Souls’ 
hospital, where the man is lying, are sat¬ 
isfied that one of the most remarkable 
miracles of modern times has been worked 
before their eyes. Scientists will seek an 
explanation, but so far none has been 
found which will be generally believed. 

The man’s skin where the picture ap¬ 
pears is not raised, as it would be if a hot 
iron had been applied, but is smooth and 
even with the surrounding sallow skin. 

Here and there a bit of skin where the 
picture appears has begun to peel off, but 
the picture itself is as distinct and clear 
cut, its details are as perfect and exact 
as when the Gray Nuns who were bathing 
the injured man's back were startled to 
see an image of Christ upon the cross 
appear before their eyes. 

How long the picture will remain in 


its present form no one who has been con¬ 
nected with the remarkable case cares to 
predict, but so far it has given no evi¬ 
dences of a tendency to disappear or even 
to fade. 

Scientists who may try to explain the 
phenomenon from the fact of the near-by 
crucifix, of which the picture upon the 
man's back might be a somewhat dis¬ 
torted photograph, will find it almost as 
difficult to solve the mystery as if the 
crucifix did not enter into the case. 

HOW IT HAPPENED. 

Parker was struck by lightning as he 
stood beneath a large maple tree, under 
whose branches he had sought shelter. 
His clothes were partly torn from his 
body, and when he was picked up it ap¬ 
peared that his back had been burned se¬ 
verely. 

At least thirty minutes passed from 
the moment when Parker was struck by 
lightning before the picture began to be 
visible, and it did not appear at all until 
after he had been lying on a bed in the 
hospital with the crucifix hanging directly 
above his head. 

A PHOTOGRAPHIC THEORY. 

Scientists will attempt an explanation 
by declaring that the man's skin had be¬ 
come sensitized by the lightning, and 
when exposed to the crucifix, which was 
the most prominent object near where he 
lay, acted as a slow photographic plate, 
but photographers will suggest that sen¬ 
sitized plates will not take a picture with¬ 
out the aid of a lens, and in this instance 
there is nothing which can correspond 
to a lens. 

On this point Dr. Griswold, the physi¬ 
cian who has had charge of Parker, is as 



GOO 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


much at a loss as would he one who knew 
of the phenomenon merely by hearsay. 

“The man’s back was not exposed to 
the crucifix for any considerable time,” 
said Dr. Griswold. “When he was taken 
into the hospital and laid upon his bed he 
lay at first on his back. As he was being 
bathed he was turned more or less from 
side to side, but I do not think that he 
was at any time laid directly upon his 
stomach. 

“From the first I have maintained that 
the picture was not the result of tattoo¬ 
ing, but of course I have no expert knowl¬ 
edge on the subject. Now that the ex¬ 
perts have seen my patient and have said 
positively that no tattooing has been done, 
my belief is, of course, confirmed. 

“There are so many mysterious factors 
in the case that one can only accept the 
facts as having occurred and admit that 
the explanation of them is beyond him. 
Of course, the lightning is responsible, 
but how it wrought this miracle is an¬ 
other matter entirely, and one which I 
shall not attempt to explain. 

“All I know is that when I first saw the 
man, a few minutes after he had been 
struck, there was not a sign of anything 
except what appeared to be burns, and that 
it was several hours afterward before I 
was notified that the picture of the cruci¬ 
fixion had appeared on his back. 

“What saved the man’s life undoubt¬ 
edly was the fact that he was wearing a 
rather heavy coat, which had become 
soaking wet. When the bolt of lightning 
struck him the water in his coat proved 
so good a conductor that most of the elec¬ 
tricity was carried down the coat, and 
thence to the ground. Otherwise it is 


probable that he would have been in¬ 
stantly killed.” 

ONE WHO SAW THE BURN. 

Mrs. Katherine Rickett was one of the 
first to see Parker after he was struck by 
the lightning and carried to the piazza of 
the house of Armstrong. She had not 
heard of the picture of the crucifixion ap¬ 
pearing on the man’s back when she was 
seen, and expressed incredulity that such 
a thing could have occurred. 

“Why, there was nothing of the sort 
when I saw the poor fellow,” she said. 
“His back was burned, to be sure, but the 
burn was all over it in little pink spots. 
There was hardly a line in it, to say noth¬ 
ing of a cross.” 

There is not to be seen anywhere near 
the spot where Parker was struck any ob¬ 
ject which the lightning could have photo¬ 
graphed on his skin at the time the bolt 
fell. On the opposite side of Mount Kem- 
hle avenue there is a pole carrying twen¬ 
ty-six telephone wires, and if a cross alone 
had appeared on the man’s back it might 
have been explained as having come from 
an arm on the pole crossed with the pole 
itself. 

Parker himself is as much at a loss 
as any one else to explain the mystery. 
He remains extremely reticent as to his 
past, but sturdily insists that he never has 
been tattooed. Questioned as to whether 
there has been any occurrence in his past 
life which, in his opinion, might be re¬ 
sponsible for the working of what appears 
to many to be a miracle, he remains silent. 

In fact, the man appears to be deeply 
depressed over the phenomenon of which 
he has been the subject, and the nervous 
strain is telling upon him severely. He 





A Tibetan “Booby-Trap” ; an Unpleasant Sltrprise in the Karo Pass. 

In reconnoitring the Karo Pass, some forty-nine miles from Gyangtse, on the road to 
Lhasa, a party of Sikh Mounted Infantry had a narrow escape from a Tibetan “booby- 
trap.” This consisted of a mass of carefully balanced stones and rocks, placed on the 
heights above the pass, which were released and shot down the hillside when the 
English soldiers were passing below. Fortunately no one was hit. 









f,6 2 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


admitted that his home is in Charlestown, 
Mass., and that he has left his parents 
on several occasions without letting them 
know his whereabouts, but further than 
that he will not go. 

“There's nothing of any interest about 
me, anyway,” he said. At the house 
where he has been boarding under the 
name of Wilmer nothing further could be 
learned about Parker, except that he said 
he was a painter and that he was anxious 
to obtain employment. 

Aside from his nervousness Parker’s 
condition is by no means critical, and it 
is probable that he will be able to leave 
the hospital in a week or ten days at the 
most. When first taken to the hospital 
he was besieged by callers, who were 
anxious to see the picture upon his back, 
and finally he became so exhausted nerv¬ 
ously that Dr. Griswold had him removed 
from the men’s ward on the ground floor 
to a private room on the floor above, 
where his condition has steadily improved. 

OTHER SIMILAR CASES ON 
RECORD. 

Although the photographing of an ob¬ 
ject upon the human skin by a stroke of 
lightning is not unique, it is of extremely 
rare occurrence, and the instances reported 
in this country number less than a score. 

In one respect, however, the case of 
Abbott Parker appears to differ materially 
from any of the others which have been 
recorded. In his case the skin seems 
to have become sensitized in such a way 
that half an hour later the image of a 
crucifix hanging above his bed in a hos¬ 
pital ward was transferred to his back, 
while in the other cases reported the phe¬ 
nomenon was instantaneous, the picture 


appearing on the skin immediately after 
the lightning struck, or at least being the 
image of some object which was near the 
person who was struck, such as a twig, 
a leaf from a tree beneath which he was 
standing or occasionally the picture of an 
entire tree. 

PHENOMENON LESS FREQUENT. 

Of recent years the instances of this 
phenomenon appear to have been less fre¬ 
quent than in the past, or it may be that 
more careful investigation has eliminated 
all but the authentic cases. 

Miss Della Moncrief was struck by 
lightning at South Framingham, Mass., 
on August 5, 1882, while sitting on the 
piazza of her residence. She was not 
severely injured, but after she recovered 
from the first shock the perfect picture of 
an elm tree that stood near the house was 
found burned upon her back. 

Lightning struck the house of Dr. 
White in Fishkill, N. Y., on July 22, 1892, 
and entered the butler’s pantry. On a 
shelf in this pantry, four feet from the 
floor, stood several royal Dresden plates 
decorated in colors. After the storm, on 
the wall of the closet were found, in cir¬ 
cles corresponding to the size of the 
plates, good copies of the ornamentation 
on the crockery made by the lightning. 

SOME OTHER INSTANCES. 

William Campbell was killed by light¬ 
ning on September 4, 1896, while stand¬ 
ing at the door of his home near Yon¬ 
kers, N. Y. The bolt uprooted a small 
shrub just in front of him, and a twig 
with leaves on it was knocked off. When 
Campbell's body was prepared for burial 
a perfect reproduction of this twig was 
found imprinted on his breast. 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


603 


The shrub was about six feet high and 
grew about sixteen feet from the spot 
where Campbell was standing when he 
was struck. The picture of the twig was 
exactly fourteen inches long and in bright 
red color. It was then said that only 
eighteen previous cases of lightning pho¬ 
tography had been recorded in this 
country. 


John Phalen was struck by lightning 
at Livonia, N. Y., on June 26, 1900. On 
his side just over his heart was a red 
spot with a black cap. From this radiated 
a dozen bright red streaks like the spokes 
of a wheel and running down about fif¬ 
teen inches. He was unconscious for 
half an hour after he was struck. 


A REMARKABLE MAN AND THE LAW SUIT OF HIS 

HEIRS. 


Suits for the recovery of a vast for¬ 
tune, instituted in Omaha, recall the career 
of the most remarkable man in many ways 
that America has ever known—George 
Francis Train, who boasted that he was 
the only duly licensed lunatic at large in 
the entire world. 

When Train was constructing the 
Union Pacific railroad in 1865 he fore¬ 
saw the growth and future importance of 
Omaha, and purchased approximately a 
square mile of land along the Missouri 
river in that city. At that time the land 
was not improved, but it has since be¬ 
come the heart of a populous district, 
with a value of $30,000,000. 

During the events that led up to the 
celebrated Beecher-Tilton trial in 1874 
Train was declared of unsound mind by 
the courts. This decree was never re¬ 
voked. Subsequently the land in Omaha 
was sold on account of failure on the part 
of Train to pay the taxes. The heirs, who 
have entered suit, now assert that the sale 
was made without due process of law, it 
being necessary when the owner is of un¬ 
sound mind to have a guardian appointed 
for him before such a transaction is legal. 
This was not done. 


The achievements of Train were as 
marvelous as his eccentricities were pro¬ 
nounced. He founded the clipper ship 
line that sailed around Cape Horn to San 
Francisco, and caused American shipping 
to lead the world. He organized the 
Credit Mobilier and the Union Pacific 
railroad, built the first street railway in 
England, and was the business partner 
of queens, emperors and grand dukes. 

He was one of the inspiring forces of 
the French Commune, from which he 
took his title “Citizen." He made more 
than seventy ocean voyages, and broke 
the record for time around the world in 
three instances. He was in jail fifteen 
times—from the New York Tombs to the 
Paris Bastile—notwithstanding that he 
never committed a crime. 

Six courts declared Train to be insane. 
For fourteen years, toward the close of 
his life, he never spoke voluntarily to a 
man or shook hands with one, devoting 
himself exclusively to children. Grown 
persons robbed him of his “psychic force,” 
he said. 

At one time Train lived in a magnifi¬ 
cent villa and spent more than $2,000 a 
week in maintaining it. His declining 



664 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


years, however, were spent in the Mills 
hotel, New York, with a total expendi¬ 
ture of $3 a week. Although he made 
millions, he was practically a pauper when 
he died. 

George Francis Train, “Citizen of the 
World,” died in New York, January, 
1904. A short time before, he had re¬ 
corded this opinion of himself: 

“How can a peanut convention know 


about a cocoanut ? The people who com¬ 
pose it have never seen a cocoanut. They 
don't know what it is. The peanut con¬ 
vention considers the cocoanut, deliber¬ 
ates wisely and passes a resolution that 
the cocoanut is a large peanut. And how 
can the cocoanut find out what it is until 
it sees another cocoanut like itself? I am 
a cocoanut. The other people are pea¬ 
nuts.” 


STRANGE VICISSITUDES OF A MAN WITH A DOUBLE. 


There is today walking about London, 
still on bail but soon to be entirely free, 
an innocent man whose disgrace and 
seven years’ penal servitude and unspeak¬ 
able moral tortures amount to the irref¬ 
utable indictment of English celebrated 
modern judicial methods. 

The extraordinary case of Adolf Beck 
will become in England the classic ex¬ 
ample of the inadequacy of the strong¬ 
est circumstantial evidence, of the almost 
criminal futility of the testimony given 
by “hand-writing experts,” of the abso¬ 
lute unreliability, in serious cases, of the 
most persistent and unhesitating personal 
identification. 

Incidentally his terrible story shows 
that in real life there do happen amazing 
coincidences which would be scouted in 
fiction, and that the arbitrary power we 
call luck does in fact play a formidable 
part in human affairs, now suddenly 
bringing a man to utter ruin, now sud¬ 
denly and inexplicably setting him on 
his feet again. 

IDENTIFIED BY MANY WOMEN. 

In view of the fate of Adolf Beck it 
will become almost impossible to convict 
a man unless he be caught red-handed in 


crime. Already this case is being coupled 
with Mrs. Maybrick’s as proof that jus¬ 
tice is still often blind. 

In December, 1896, Adolf Beck, walk¬ 
ing in the evening in the Westminster dis¬ 
trict, was addressed by a woman who ex¬ 
claimed in a menacing tone. “I know 
you!" He passed on hastily, but the wo¬ 
man dogged him down the street. Beck- 
spoke to a policeman. The woman 
promptly accused him of having robbed 
her of two watches and a ring. He was 
arrested. 

Women from all over London came 
forward and identified him as having 
robbed them of jewelry or money. Ac¬ 
cording to their evidence the prisoner 
had passed himself off to each of them for 
a peer, immensely rich, and anxious to 
take them round the world on his yacht, 
or to establish them at one or other of his 
castles or manors in the country. Some¬ 
times he would write them a heavy check 
—bogus—taking from them, say a hun¬ 
dred dollars, on the pretext that he had 
run out of cash “and the cursed banks 
are all closed, don’t you know.” Some¬ 
times he would borrow a ring, to be a 
guide to him in selecting the right fit in 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


665 


the superb “engagement ring” to be pur¬ 
chased next morning before the pair set 
out on their little expedition. 

MANY WITNESSES SWORE TO HIS 
IDENTITY. 

The women were absolutely unhesitat¬ 
ing in their recognition of the man; the 
case became still stronger when the prose¬ 
cution put in the box a witness, an ex¬ 
police sergeant, who testified that nearly 
twenty years ago he had arrested the pris¬ 
oner for the same offense, and that Beck 
had then been convicted under the name 
of Smith and had served five years’ penal 
servitude. This seemed conclusive, but 
Beck in face of all maintained his abso¬ 
lute innocence. With such force and in¬ 
tensity of passion did he voice his indig¬ 
nation as to shake the judge’s mind. The 
sergeant was called back. “You are an 
old man,” the judge put it, “and you 
want to go happy to your grave. Do you 
swear to this man?” 

And the old man swore: “Without the 
shadow of a doubt I took this man into 
custody twenty years ago!” 

A handwriting expert testified that the 
writing of the convict Smith was abso¬ 
lutely identical with that of Adolf Beck; 
no two men could write so exactly alike 
by mere chance. This was damning. 

Beck tried in vain to establish an alibi. 
In the year 1877 he had been in Peru, and 
at the time of some, at least, of the rob¬ 
beries now charged against him he was 
in Norway. It was of no avail. He was 
sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude. 
As he was removed to the oblivion of the 
cell he protested loudly that a hideous in¬ 
justice was being done. In prison he still 
affirmed his innocence; he told the chap¬ 


lains and warders that when he should be 
free he would hunt the streets of London 
day and night for the clue that would en¬ 
able him to prove himself an upright man. 
And he added : “Day and night I pray 
to God to make my innocence manifest, 
and I know—I do really know—that my 
prayer will be heard—has been heard. 
Sooner or later the world will recognize 
that I am a much wronged man, victim 
of a terrible series of mischances.” 

BECAME A BLOODHOUND MAN. 

When his time was served and he was 
free he kept his word. He became a 
prowler day and night in hideous places, 
“a bloodhound man," he said, determined 
to track down the infamous wretch for 
whose horrible crimes lie had suffered 
disgrace and agonies and the shattering 
of his life. 

His solicitor of 1896 believed in him 
implicitly, as Lord Russell maintained 
the innocence of his client, Mrs. May- 
brick. The well-known journalist, Mr. 
George R. Sims, who at the time of the 
conviction had written impassioned col¬ 
umns in his favor, was faithful and in¬ 
defatigable in help and encouragement. 

Then another, an inconceivably terrible 
blow fell on him. In April, 1904, Adolf 
Beck was arrested again. A woman meet¬ 
ing him on the street demanded from him 
her watch and chain. Again he was 
brought to the police courts. Again other 
women came forward and identified him: 
“That is the very man that swindled me!” 
Now many of his friends abandoned him; 
this was too much for human belief. 
Once in a man’s life this thing might 
happen—twice, no! That was beyond the 
limits of possibility. 





BOOK OF THE TIMES 


666 


Still courageous to the end under this 
bitterest fate that could befall any man. 
Beck made the country ring with his pas¬ 
sionate protestations, appeals, cries for in¬ 
vestigation. 

The evidence was appallingly strong. 
Scarcely any one could have any doubt 
that this man was the most brazen-faced 
criminal as well as one of the most loath¬ 
some specimens of degraded humanity 
that ever fell into the net of justice. 

None the less there was a fervor, a 
convincingness” about the man’s af¬ 
firmations that made the judge hesitate. 
Mr. Justice Grantham, against all prece¬ 
dent, deferred sentence to the next ses¬ 
sion. 

In the nick of time there came a sur¬ 
prising development. There was a dra¬ 
matic appearance that changed all the 
face of the case, as dramatic as any in 
all the records of justice. 

HIS DOUBLE FOUND AT LAST. 

Recently there was put into the dock 
a prisoner calling himself “William 
Thomas, journalist,” to answer the 
charge of feloniously obtaining jewelrv 
from two women. 

In every detail of method and pretext 
it was exactly a repetition of Beck’s 
crime. And the prisoner was exactly 
Beck’s “double.” 

The same heavy gray hair, the same 
thick gray military mustache, the same 


firm chin, eyebrows densely shaded and 
arching after the same line, the same 
rather full, well-fed face. The only dif¬ 
ference was in the line of the nose, and 
this was scarcely to be noticed except 
when the faces were carefully scrutinized 
in profile. 

There was no reasonable doubt that 
this new prisoner, who refused all details 
of address, connections, etc., was the man 
for whose hideous infamies Adolf Beck 
had suffered a veritable hell of torture 
and the deepest depths of ignominy, the 
man who in 1877 served the richly de¬ 
served five years’ penal servitude wrongly 
attributed to Adolf Beck. 

Was there ever a more amazing case 
of the duplication of personal appear¬ 
ance? It is to be noticed that the doub¬ 
ling was not the relatively common case 
of one man at one given moment re¬ 
sembling another or in any one year of 
life. Here the resemblance had persisted 
year by year during twenty-seven years. 
“The man who was like Beck in 1877 is 
like him today, as he was like him in that 
fatal 1896. Until the death of one, it 
would seem, neither would be safe from 
the consequences of any crime of the 
other. 

Immediately on the discovery of the 
startling similarity Beck’s freedom was a 
foregone conclusion. The public con¬ 
science demanded his immediate release 
and nominal bail was at once taken. 


A REMARKABLE DECISION ON CHURCH PROPERTY. 


The British House of Lords sitting as 
a High Court of the Kingdom for Scot¬ 
land recently rendered an extraordinary 
judgment. On Sunday, August 7. 1904, 
the pastors of 1,100 churches of what is 


known as the “United Free Church” of 
that country read to crowded congrega¬ 
tions a manifesto, which has been de¬ 
scribed as “of the nature of a death war¬ 
rant.” The purport of it was that they 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


667 


have no right to the pulpits they occupy. 

Nothing has created a greater sensa¬ 
tion north of the Tweed, since what is 
known as the great disruption of 1843, 
than the decision in the appeal case 
against Lord Overton and the other trus¬ 
tees of the funds of the Free Church. 
Two formerly separate church organiza¬ 
tions in Scotland, the Free Church and 
the United Presbyterian Church, came to¬ 
gether in a union organization in 1900 
under the common designation of the 
United Free Church of Scotland. The 
action on the part of the old Free Church 
was not unanimous. Twenty-seven of 
the Free Church ministers, mostly hailing 
from remote and obscure Highland 
churches, stood out in opposition to the 
union and failed to sanction it. These 
men were ultra-Calvinists, unaffected by 
the liberalizing tendencies of modern 
theology. They belonged, in fact, to 
Jonathan Edwards’ era of orthodoxy. 
The large majority of the ministers, how¬ 
ever, had got far away from that school 
of thought. Between them and the min¬ 
isters of what has been known as the 
United Presbyterian Church there was 
essential agreement in faith and doctrine 
and a cordial sympathy. These condi¬ 
tions brought about the federal union 
lately accomplished. It was commonly 
regarded by the Protestant denomina¬ 
tions of Great Britain and the United 
States as a wise and useful step, tending 
to the honor of religion and the welfare 
of the people. 

SMALL REMNANT GREATLY 
ENRICHED. 

If all the Free Church ministers had 
entered into the arrangement there 
would have been no such trouble as has 


arisen. Those who did enter into it of 
course abandoned the Free Church. 
There remained a small remnant which 
continued to be the Free Church. As an 
independent body the Free Church had a 
large property, consisting principally of 
churches, parsonages and endowment 
funds, which belonged to the church or¬ 
ganization as a corporate body, not to 
the individual church or parish. The 
majority who abandoned the Free Church 
and joined in creating the new church 
organization presumed to carry off with 
them this property and convey it practi¬ 
cally to the separate church they had es¬ 
tablished. 

The twenty-seven clergymen and their 
flocks, who still constituted the Free 
Church and continued its existence, made 
a protest. What they said in effect was 
that the ministers themselves had a per¬ 
sonal right to abandon the Free Church 
and set up any other they pleased to set 
up; but the property of the Free Church, 
given to it because it was the Free 
Church, and to support the faith and doc¬ 
trine of the Free Church, as set forth in 
its standards, continued to be the prop¬ 
erty of the Free Church, and could not 
be alienated or appropriated by those 
leaving it. They protested against the 
new movement on the ground that it was 
an acceptance of the “Voluntary” princi¬ 
ple and a violation of the Constitution of 
the Church, as adopted at the disruption 
in 1843. Therefore, this feeble body, 
standing firmly by the ancient landmarks, 
with the ardor and courage of true 
Scotchmen, brought suit for possession 
of all the property which the secessionists 
had appropriated as their own. 

Previously, however, they had made 




66S 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


offers of compromise that were rejected. 
The Scottish courts decided against their 
claim. This, it was thought, must end 
the matter, because it was not believed 
the clergymen would undertake the ex¬ 
pense of an appeal to the House of Lords. 
But these “Wee Kirkers,” as they were 
contemptuously styled by the United Free 
Kirkers, were not quitters. As it was a 
question of legal right to possession of 
the property which both parties claimed, 
the Wee Kirkers, conscious of their pov¬ 
erty, proposed that the expense of appeal 
to the high court of the realm should be 
borne by the property, much as in this 
country it is often agreed that the expense 
of obtaining a judicial construction of a 
will shall be borne by the estate. The 
suggestion was scouted. 

CASE CARRIED TO HOUSE OF 
LORDS. 

But the Wee Kirkers proceeded with¬ 
out faltering. They carried the case to 
the Lords, a proceeding involving a cost 
of $200,000, and they won out, being 
awarded the custody of the entire church 
property, the costs being assessed on the 
defendants. It was such another David 


and Goliath battle as has seldom been re¬ 
corded. The property that was at stake 
has an estimated value of $50,000,000. 

One may believe, as it is reported, that 
the tone of the manifesto read by the 
1,100 clergymen to their congregations 
was distinctly humble as compared with 
the tone they had formerly held toward 
the Wee Kirkers. They have no stand¬ 
ing ground in the law now. What will 
be done? Probably some sort of a com¬ 
promise will be arranged in time, but the 
small body cannot be forced. It is no 
longer at the mercy of the other. It is, 
indeed, improbable that it could supply 
clergymen of its kind to these churches 
if the others should be driven out. While 
it is acknowledged by English news¬ 
papers that the Lords may be technically 
right, it is felt that the decision never¬ 
theless strikes a blow at the cause of re¬ 
ligious freedom. It seems absurd that 
the law Lords should be able to over¬ 
throw the decision of the Scottish courts 
in a matter of this kind, and one writer 
expresses a hope that the action will rouse 
Scotland to agitate for home rule and for 
the disestablishment of the House of 
Lords. 


IN A FIRE-WORKS FACTORY. 


HOW ROCKETS, FIERY PICTURES 
AND LURID EXPLOSIVES 
ARE MADE. 

With its little houses scattered about 
beneath the trees the place looks like a 
summer camp. In reality it is a fireworks 

factory. 

Within the city limits of New York, 
'nut amid the gentle bucolic surroundings 
of rustling leaves overhead and grass and 


red clover along the paths, begins every 
day the life of thousands of rockets that 
will fill the night with upshooting streams 
of fire, of shells that will burst into fall¬ 
ing stars, of batteries and Roman candles 
that will pour forth volleys of fiery balls, 
of set pieces that will become pictures 
sketched in flame. 

“So our grove here strikes you as ap¬ 
pearing like a picnic ground, does it?” 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


000 


exclaimed the superintendent in comment 
on a remark of a visitor. “Well, it’s far 
from it. We have a hundred men and 
women working here, and the hurry or¬ 
ders are coming in so fast just now that 
you can be sure we are having no picnic. 

“It is necessary for the making of fire¬ 
works to have a big inclosure and a lot of 
small houses, so as to prevent an ex- 


metrical pile of sheets of heavy brown 
paper and a big pot of paste. With cease¬ 
less industry each worker is spreadin 
sheets of the paper on the table, daubin 
them with paste, deftly turning them on 
the rolling pin, and tossing the stiff 
cylindrical shapes thus formed into a 
heap at one side. Some of the girls have 
large rolling pins, and some small ones, 



Chinese Labor Employed by the Russians : Coolies Moving a Big Gun at Newchwang. 
The Russians do not hesitate to use coolie labor in Manchuria, not being troubled in any 

way with qualms of conscience about “slavery.” 


plosion of powder in one from causing 
the whole plant to go up in smoke. Per¬ 
haps you would like to take a walk around 
our village.” 

The interior of the little house in which 
are taken the first steps in the making 
of a rocket looks, upon a casual glance, 
like a bakeshop. Here are rows of girls 
standing at tables with their sleeves up 
and rolling pins in their hands. 

At the right hand of each is a sym- 


and several, who are making slender 
Roman candles are working with thin 
bars of metal. 

After the paste has been allowed to dry 
the cvlinders are readv for their charges. 
Those which are to become rockets are 
distributed among several houses, each of 
which is occupied by a powder-begrimed 
man, who works alone. 

He sets the prospective rockets on end 
in frames holding a couple of dozen or 


bJ 3 b/) 



























BOOK OF THE TIMES 


070 


so, packs a foundation Gf clay into the 
bottom of each, and upon this puts a 
small scoop of powder. A hydraulic ma¬ 
chine with projecting rods is now called 
into play. The rods slip into the paper 
cylinders and ram the powder tight with 
a pressure of seven tons. 

This layer of powder is followed by an¬ 
other, which is also pressed down by the 
machine, and thus the process is con¬ 
tinued until the cylinder is nearly filled 
with powder, on top of which is put an¬ 
other casing of clay. In other booths the 
rocket is fitted with its fuse, its stick, and 
the outer adornments that put it in readi¬ 
ness for the window of the fireworks 
dealer. 

Equally simple in their making are the 
spherical shells which go hurtling into the 
heavens and flame out against the dark¬ 
ness into showers of stars and falling 
canopies of changing lights. One of their 
chief ingredients is waste paper. 

In one of the houses is a machine for 
grinding the paper, and near by is a tub 
of it in a half liquid state. A man thrusts 
a dipper into this, and pours the paper 
through a bowlike aperture in another 
machine. He then moves a crank that 
causes a sort of rounded ram to descend 
into the bowl and squeeze the paper into 
the same shape. 

These forms, which have been com¬ 
pressed tightly enough to handle, are 
passed to girls, who make globes of pairs 
of them by pasting them together with 
strips of paper. They are then left to dry. 
Lying on racks in the open air in sunny 
weather they resemble cocoanuts, and are 
so humble of aspect that one would never 
suspect that they are destined in their final 


moment to give forth an awe-inspiring 
beauty. 

This beauty, in its original form, is to 
be found in barrels in several of the little 
houses in which the chemists work. Here 
the latter combine the various chemical 
ingredients into compounds, each of 
which when ignited will produce fire of a 
distinctive color. The compounds are 
packed into what are called pill boxes, be¬ 
cause they are of about the same size and 
shape as small receptacles for pills. 

Held in these, powders of various 
colors are stored in the shells through a 
hole left in the top of each, and when the 
mid-air explosion comes they take the 
form of multi-colored falling stars. To 
produce the snakelike and other odd ef¬ 
fects, the compounds are arranged in 
forms which carry the fire in the desired 
directions. 

This is the general principle of con¬ 
struction of the mines, fountains, meteors, 
and all the rest of the variegated forms of 
fireworks that make gorgeous spectacles 
of the night celebrations of the Fourth of 
July. Clever brains at the fireworks fac¬ 
tory are constantly busy devising new ef¬ 
fects in the form and color of the fire. 
An idea of this season is radium fire, an 
intense white light which dims the moon 
and causes the stars for a time to be for¬ 
gotten. 

A paper cone containing a charge of 
ordinary powder is affixed to the bottom 
of the shell to project it from the motor, 
and a fuse is put in place which fires this 
charge, and then, burning on, explodes 
the shell at a height of about 600 feet. 

One of the houses in the inclosure is 
devoted to the making of the fuses. Here 
one sees men with their arms deep in vats 




STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


671 


of powder, which has been so mixed as 
to bring it to a semi-liquid state. A 
worker puts a long coil of light cord in 
a vat and manipulates it there until all of 
it has been saturated and carries a coating 
of the powder. Then the cord is taken 
out and strung on big frames to dry. 
Afterward, as needed, it is cut into fuses. 

Another feature of the inclosure is a 
smooth wooden platform that furthers 
the suggestion of the trees and grass that 
this might be a picnic ground. The plat¬ 
form would do very well for dancing. On 
it, however, are drawn in black paint 
three pictures of heroic size. One is of 
George Washington, another is of Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt, and the third is a com¬ 
bination of the American eagle and the 
Stars and Stripes. 

“This is where we sketch our drawings 
for the set pieces,"remarked the superin¬ 
tendent. “The three you see are used so 
often that we have put them down in 
black paint, but all others are merely 
chalked on the boards, and in a day or 
so are rubbed out and replaced by new 
ones. 

“We have two artists constantly at 
work on pictures to be reproduced in fire. 


A ith the exception of the ones you see 
we never keep any of these set pieces in 
stock, but just as soon as an order comes 
in for a picture one of our artists makes 
the drawing, and it is at once sketched to 
scale on this floor. 

“We lay a big wooden frame over the 
picture on the platform, and duplicate its 
lines in pliable bamboo, nailing the latter 
on the frame as we go along. On the 
bamboo we fasten the slow-burning - fuses, 
which, when touched off, present the work 
of art in fiery outlines. 

"These pictures are among the most ef¬ 
fective of fireworks. I have often heard 
people marvel at them, and yet their 
process of manufacture is quite simple, 
you see. We frequently receive an order 
for a portrait or some other pictorial piece 
in the afternoon, and have it ready to ship 
the next morning. 

“You would be surprised at the range 
of subjects. They vary from race horses 
to roses, from ships to babies. Frequent¬ 
ly an association that wants to do honor 
to a leading citizen will send us a photo¬ 
graph from which we are expected to 
make a fiery likeness.’’ 


ABBATTOIR FOR THE WORLD. 


A GLANCE AT THE MEAT-FOOD 
CONSUMED FROM ONE 
SLAUGHTER HOUSE. 

“The world’s biggest butcher shop” is 
the term frequently applied to the Union 
Stock Yards of Chicago, and a study of a 
few statistics will readily demonstrate the 
reason. In 1903 over 300,000 carloads 
of live stock, valued in round figures at 
$300,000,000, were slaughtered within 


the precincts of the yards, or approximate 
to fifty per cent of the total receipts at all 
stock centres in the country. 

Over $40,000,000 was distributed in 
wages to over 50.000 men employed in 
various capacities about the yards. This 
vast volume of business is divided among 
nearly 100 firms. Many of these, how¬ 
ever, are comparatively unknown to the 
country at large and are controlled by 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 


O', 2 


the Armour Company, Swift & Co., Nel¬ 
son Morris, the Cudahys, and Schwarz- 
schild & Sulzberger, the firm's which have 
made “Packing Town” famous. The 
combined investment of the ioo firms 
within the yards is over $100,000,000. 
At this time when attention is called to 
this vast enterprise a little of the history 
of the development of Chicago's vast 
slaughtering business will undoubtedly 
be of interest to many citizens who know 
that this city is in the lead of all packing 
centres but do not know why. 

Way back as far as 1848 the Chicago 
slaughtering industry was given an im- 



Antiquarians claim that balls upon the top of gate-posts orig¬ 
inated from skulls set upon stakes before the doors of our 
forefathers' dwellings. 


petus by the establishing of the “Old 
Bull’s Head” stock yards at Madison 
street and Ogden avenue. It was a great 
institution for the time, but was over¬ 
shadowed in 1854 by the completion of a 
new yard at State and Twenty-second 
streets. 

In i860 a half dozen stock yards were 
established in various parts of the city 
and the necessity for a union yard mani¬ 
fested itself particularly to the railroad 
interests. 

It was not until 1864, however, that the 
Union Stock Yards and Transit Com¬ 
pany was organized with a capital stock 
of $1,000,000. A tenth of this sum was 


expended for 320 acres of “worthless 
marsh land” belonging to “Long" John 
Wentworth, and it is on this meadow 
that the greatest packing centre in the 
world is located. The area has been in¬ 
creased since to nearly 500 acres to meet 
the demands of the rapidly growing en¬ 
terprise. 

Within this yard are twenty-five miles 
of streets, forty miles of water troughs, 
9,000 cattle pens, 5,000 hog and sheep 
pens, and the enormous buildings devoted 
to the killing and packing business. 

The present value of the property be¬ 
longing distinctly to the corporation is 
over $10,000,000, including the real es¬ 
tate, the exchange building, the National 
Live Stock Bank building, and the recent 
buildings used for the annual live stock 
show. 

Every railroad entering the city is con¬ 
nected directly with the yards by the com¬ 
pany’s belt line and over four miles of 
platforms are used in the delivery of the 
product to the roads. 

A synopsis of the receipts and values 
for 1903, as taken from the report of the 
secretary, may be of interest: 


Value. 

c Mtle. 3,443,428 $154,093,403 

Calves . 272,718 2,727,180 

Hogs . 7,837,649 106,787,977 

Sheep. 4,589,792 18,588,657 

Horses . 101,103 13,522,526 


Totals -16,244,690 $295,719,743 

Some conception of the steady develop¬ 
ment of the stock yards industry in Chi¬ 
cago may be gained from the knowledge 
that the figures for 1903 showed a gain 
of about nine per cent over the previous 
vear. 














































STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND TACTS 


673 


BERLIN’S WONDERFUL HORSE. 


HE CAN DO ALMOST EVERY¬ 
THING BUT TALK—HOW HE 
WAS TAUGHT. 

In an out-of-the-way part of the Ger¬ 
man capital a horse is now shown which 
has stirred up the scientific, military, and 
sporting world of the Fatherland. It 
should he said at the very outset that the 
facts in this article are not drawn from 
the imagination, but are based upon true 
observations and can be verified by Dr. 
Studt, Prussian Minister of Education; 
by the famous zoologist, Professor Moe- 
bius, director of the Prussian Natural 
History Museum, and by other eminent' 
scientific and military authorities. I had 
occasion recently to see a performance of 
the animal which was given in the pres¬ 
ence of the young Duke of Sachse-Co- 
burg-Gotha. 

Hans, the wonderful stallion, is nine 
years old and is the property of a Herr 
von Osten, a retired school teacher. The 
horse has never been used for riding or 
driving. For over four years Herr von 
Osten has given the animal systematic 
instruction such as he would give to a 
child. The industrious pedagogue is the 
owner of a tenement house in the north¬ 
ern part of Berlin, and there he lives. 
The animal is quartered in a small shed 
adjoining a court where he is shown. 

Some years ago the neighborhood was 
astonished by observing the training 
which Herr von Osten gave his animal. 
They beheld him and Hans at a certain 
hour of the day standing in the court be¬ 
fore a blackboard and counting machine. 
Herr von Osten, undismayed by ridicule 
(for by his method he had gained the 


reputation of being an old crank), in¬ 
structed the stallion by showing him the 
balls on the machine, and influencing him 
to indicate a number by stamping down 
his right hoof. At the same time, while 
the horse was doing this, his instructor 
spoke the name of the number. Then 
every time Hans put down his foot cor¬ 
rectly he would be rewarded by a carrot 
or a piece of sugar. All other tilings the 
intelligent animal learned by seeing cer¬ 
tain objects and at the same time hearing 
their names. In this way words to him 
became signs for visible objects, and he 
used footsteps as signs for his percep¬ 
tions, according to the same psychic laws 
as we use a language to make others un¬ 
derstand. 

After Herr von Osten had taught Hans 
this simple sign language, the foundation 
for further education was established. He 
put before him gold, silver, and copper 
coins, and taught him to indicate gold 
pieces by one movement of the foot, sil¬ 
ver with two, and copper with three steps. 
When, for example, three coins were 
placed in a row, Hans stamped down his 
foot three times when asked the number. 
He is also able to distinguish coins ac¬ 
cording to signs. When asked to give 
the value of a one-mark piece touched by 
his teacher, he moves his foot once, for 
a two-mark piece twice, etc. 

Hans is an expert in numbers, even 
being able to figure fractions. He an¬ 
swers correctly the number of 4’s in 8, 
in 16, in 30, etc. When asked how many 
3’s there are in 7 he stamps down his 
foot twice and for the fraction once. 
Then, when 5 and 9 are written under 





674 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


each other on the blackboard and he is 
asked to add the sum, he answers cor¬ 
rectly. 

Hans is also capable of distinguishing 
persons. He told the number of girls 
and officers standing in a line. 

AN INCIDENT OF EQUINE 
SAGACITY. 

This very remarkable thing happened. 


An officer was pointed out, and Hans 
was told, “That is Count Dolma." 
Half an hour later the same man was 
pointed out to him, and when asked for 
his name the horse picked out the letters 
D-o from the blackboard. Herr von Os- 
ten, however, having the name Doenhof 
in mind, wanted to help the animal by ut¬ 
tering “Do.” Uninfluenced, however, 


Hans spelt out correctly “Dohna." In 
the same manner Hans was introduced 
to the Prince of Sachse-Cohurg-Gotha, 
and also gave his name correctly. 

The versatility of Hans in other direc¬ 
tions is astonishing. He can distinguish 
between straw and felt hats, between 
canes and umbrellas. He knows the dif¬ 
ferent colors. One beholds several col¬ 


ored rags fastened on a string. A cav¬ 
alry 7 officer places himself before the horse 
and Hans is asked to state the color of his 
cap. The horse answers by stamping his 
foot down three times—the color of the 
third rag, which, like the cap, is red. 

Hans has also been taught to distin¬ 
guish tones. The various tones of the 
musical scale are numbered, and he rec- 



Hans, the German horse, declared by scientists to have human sense. 





















STRANGEST OF STRANGE El'ENTS AND FACTS 


675 


ognizes their position by his usual 
method. 

Hans can tell the time on a watch and 
can indicate the 'exact hour. At the test 
he recognized persons from photographs. 
Herr von Osten placed persons in a row 
who had given him their photographs, 
then put the picture before the horse and 
asked him to indicate the position of the 
person in the line. Again Hans recog¬ 
nized the gentleman in civilian clothes 
who the day before had been introduced 
to him in uniform. He knows the names 
of the months and indicates the day of 
the week by putting down his foot. Sun¬ 
day once. Monday twice, etc. 

EXAMINATION BY A SCIENTIST. 

Professor Moebius, the eminent zool¬ 
ogist, has this to say about Hans : 

“He possesses the ability to see sharp¬ 
ly, to distinguish mental impressions 
from each other, to retain them in his 
memory, and to utter them by his hoof 
language. Of course, not by himself has 
he learned all this, but by methodical in- 

HOW BANK ROBBERY 

During the last twenty-five years no at¬ 
tack, successful or otherwise, has been 
made on any bank vault in the United 
States in cities of over 50.000 inhabitants. 
Most of the bank robberies occurring to¬ 
day take place in towns of 2,500 to 7.500 
inhabitants. In the larger cities where 
the treasure really is no one even attempts 
to rob a bank. 

Why is this? 

Money can protect money. That is the 
whole secret. The country banks depend 
on safes costing perhaps a few hundred 
dollars: a great city bank spends perhaps 


struction of a human intelligence, who 
has developed the highly intelligent senses 
of the species horse. For wild horses, not 
trained, in the same manner utilize their 
physical and psychic faculties as does 
Hans, to satisfy their desire for food. 

“Herr von Osten has succeeded in 
training Hans by cultivating in him a 
desire for delicacies. This desire is 
aroused by questions and finger signs, ac¬ 
cording to which the stallion acts, in order 
to satisfy his aroused desire, for as soon 
as he puts his foot down he snaps for the 
delicacy in the hand of his master. I 
doubt whether the horse really takes 
pleasure in his studies. He follows en¬ 
tirely mental impressions which he re¬ 
ceives from the surroundings and which 
satisfy his wants.” 

Hans is the second horse Herr von Os¬ 
ten has trained. He claims that any horse 
of fair intelligence can be so taught. 
Herr von Osten’s training is done purely 
from a scientific standpoint, and he told 
me that he greatly regretted the prema¬ 
ture publicity given to his work. 

IS MADE IMPOSSIBLE. 

$150,000 for its burglar and fire proof 
vaults. And these vaults are proof. They 
are absolutely unassailable. The guard¬ 
ing of a bank’s money has been reduced 
to such a science that a banker, having 
once taken the proper precautions, never 
gives the matter a further thought, 
though he have millions of dollars within 
his doors. 

STEEL LINING COSTS THOU¬ 
SANDS. 

The fireproofing for a large vault can 
be constructed for from $10,000 to 
$15,000. It is the burglar proof steel 





076 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


lining that brings the cost of vault con¬ 
struction up to the six figure mark. 

Think of a steel door weighing twelve 
tons or of a hinge alone weighing one 
ton! When that door consists of ten 
inches of drill proof steel, plate lapped 
on plate, do you wonder that even the 
most daring burglar has never attempted 
it? Such a great door usually has some 
four and twenty two or three-inch steel 
bolts which shoot out automatically in 
four directions as soon as the door is 
closed. The entire closing of the door is 
absolutely water tight. The closing has 
actually been tested one whole night 
under water. This closing is of the 
“tongue and groove” variety and the 
groove is packed with packing. 

This formidable door is furnished with 
a time lock that can be set for any num¬ 
ber of hours and that cannot be opened 
until the hour for which it is set arrives. 
The door is furnished with perhaps three 
duplicate timers, so that if two should 
fail to work there would still be one to 
open the door. 

ONLY OFFICIALS ALLOWED IN¬ 
SIDE. 

Inside the great door a massive grating 
called the day grate gives access to the 
vault. To this chamber, which, with its 
four-inch walls of drill proof steel, is 
worthy of Vulcan himself, only the active 
officials of the bank have entrance. Here 
are the tellers’ safes, where they keep the 
money for the day’s business. Here are 
bags of gold, $5,000 in each, piled up 
like so many bags of buttons, each bag 
most securely tied and sealed. Here are 
packages of bills stacked up like bricks. 
The ones and twos in $1,000 packages; 


the fives in $5,000 packages; and the tens 
and twenties in $10,000 packages. The 
bills in each of these packages have been 
counted, tied up, and sealed by two per¬ 
sons in the presence of each other, so 
that the bank can guarantee the amounts 
as given on the labels without recounting. 

Here, beside the tellers’ safes, are com¬ 
partments where the collateral received 
for loans to depositors is kept. 

But this is only the outer division of 
the vault chamber; beyond is another 
massive grating dividing the vault into 
two rooms. No single official can pene¬ 
trate to the inner shrine, and one of the 
two officials necessarily present must be 
a director of the bank. Here is the holy 
of holies, where repose the reserve funds 
of the bank—millions of gold and paper 
money. The reserve funds are kept in 
safes on which the locks are timed to open 
every morning, so that if necessary the 
bank tellers could have the money at a 
moment's notice. 

CAN’T USE NITROGLYCERIN. 

The two divisions of the vault form 
really one chamber with walls of drill 
proof steel. The walls are drill proof, yet, 
as a matter of fact, the up-to-date burglar 
does not work with drills. A few sticks 
of dynamite, some nitroglycerin in a bot¬ 
tle, with alcohol, putty, candles, wire, wire 
nippers, and an exhaust pump, are the 
principal items in his outfit. With these 
tools he often “makes an impression” on 
a small safe. But a single charge of 
dynamite heavy enough to open the joints 
of a big vault would wreck the whole 
building. Unlimited time, therefore, in 
which to work would be necessary to the 
successful wrecking of a drill proof vault 






677 


STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


by explosives. For it would be necessary 
to use a long succession of small charges; 
to work patiently at plate after plate, and 
the conditions make this absolutely im¬ 
possible. The reason such great pains are 
taken to make all joints water tight is to 
guard against the introduction of nitro¬ 
glycerin, which has about the consistency 
of honey or common glycerin. Nitro¬ 
glycerin is not effective unless it is inside 
the safe or vault. 

The entire great steel room is made 
fire-proof by being inclosed in brick, or 
tile, or cement walls, between which and 
the steel walls is an air space four or five 
inches thick. Air is a nonconductor of 
heat, and being interposed between the 
brick and the steel walls prevents the lat¬ 
ter from becoming overheated. So per¬ 
fect is the protection that even when a 
building has been destroyed the contents 
of the vaults within have remained un¬ 
changed. Several such instances were 
noted after the Baltimore fire. 

PROVIDE FOR WATCHMEN’S 
FAILURE. 

Notwithstanding these extraordinary 
safeguards against fire and thieves offered 
by these walls of steel and fire-proof brick 
just described, the bank vaults are never 
left without human guards. All night 
three watchmen patrol the entire building. 
These men are required to set off certain 


signals in various parts of the building 
every half hour. The record of these 
signals is shown on an electric clock. If 
one watchman failed to make one signal 
at the proper time the record clock would 
disclose such failure. Besides these ordi¬ 
nary signals there are alarm boxes near 
the vault door where the watchman can 
ring up the police, fire department, etc. 

Even should three watchmen fail in 
their duty—something hardly to be imag¬ 
ined, since it would mean ruin to the men 
—there is an automatic alarm set off by 
any contact with the inner surface of the 
vault. So, if one can imagine the un¬ 
imaginable and suppose the impossible, 
that by any means a thief could get 
through the walls or the door of the 
vault, the moment he reached the inner 
surface a gong on the roof or in the street 
in front of the bank building would clang 
out an alarm that would he heard three 
blocks away. 

A still further piling of Ossa on Pelion 
is the insurance which all the large bank¬ 
ers carry on their depositors’ money, 
stocks, bonds, and other collateral. 

Considering all these extraordinary 
safeguards which are commonly taken by 
a bank, is it any wonder that, with the ex¬ 
ceptions noted, no bank vault in the large 
cities has been even attempted during the 
last twenty-five years? 


LATEST EXPLORATIONS. 


Major Powell-Clayton, in his recent 
African explorations, went to Mount 
Elgon, the country of the cave dwellers. 
He describes the discovery of an unusual¬ 
ly interesting cave occupied by some of 
these people. “I was examining with a 


telescope,” he said, “a waterfall which the 
Fish river made as it fell over the pre¬ 
cipitous rocks encircling the lower slopes 
of Eleon, when I discovered the entrance 
to a cave close to the fall. My guides 
casually informed me that it was one of 




678 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the habitations of the cave dwellers, but 
they supposed it to be deserted. How¬ 
ever, next morning, I paid it a visit and 
thoroughly explored three of the caves, 
two of which, to my astonishment, proved 
to be still inhabited. This kindled my in¬ 
terest and a day or two later I made fur¬ 
ther investigations, visiting another group 
of caves, all of which were occupied. 

DUG BY PREHISTORIC RACE. 

“Here the father of the cave settlement, 
although at first suspicious of mv inten¬ 
tions, afterward became friendly and in¬ 
troduced me to the members of his fam¬ 
ily. He likewise conducted me all over 
his cave. On my inquiring as to the 
origin of the caves they said they were 
natural, and ridiculed the idea that any 
man could do such work; but as I could 
distinctly trace tool marks over the whole 
surface there is no doubt in my mind that 
these caves have been hewn out either by 
some prehistoric race or possibly by the 
remote ancestors of the present inhabi¬ 
tants.” 

In the midst of the country of the 
Karamoja Major Powell-Clayton found 
the Tepeth, a tribe living apart from the 
other occupants of the country, who pro¬ 
tected themselves from the other tribe, 
which outnumbered them a thousand to 
one, by taking advantage of the super¬ 
stitious fears of the stronger race. In 
reply to questions they said that if the 
Karamoja interfered with them they cast 
a spell which caused the latter's cattle to 
perish. The huts of the Tepeth villages, 
unlike the huts seen previously, were two- 
storied. the entrance to the upper story 
being - a sort of dormer window in the 


thatched roof which was reached by a 
rude ladder formed of a tree trunk. 

HOW THEY FOUGHT. 

The Karamoja warriors had an inter¬ 
esting method of attack in battle. They 
would advance by a succession of short 
runs of about twenty paces forward, in¬ 
terrupted by halts in a kneeling position. 
When they knelt they would protect 
themselves by means of a narrow and 
long shield. These shields were of skin 
and wickerwork, the latter being used 
by the youths in practice for warding off 
sticks thrown by their companions. It 
was surprising how much of the body 
was protected by these light and narrow 
shields. 

Later - on in his travels he encountered a 
tribe known as the Turkana, which was 
considered to be warlike. He convinced 
them that he was friendly, and getting 
out a gramophone he quickly attracted an 
admiring crowd of listeners about his 
tent. 

TAMED BY MUSIC. 

It proved to be a case of “music hath 
charms to soothe the savage breast.” Of 
the concert and the Turkana themselves 
Major Powell-Cotton said : “Band pieces 
did not appeal to them, but banjo duets 
or anything with the human voice, whist¬ 
ling or the imitation of animals’ cries, 
evoked either roars of laughter or approv¬ 
ing grunts. The Turkana were fine, tall 
men. The heads of families wore their 
hair in a matlike form, as among the Suk 
and Karamoja, while others had a great 
topknot of clay decorated with either a 
big pompon of ostrich feathers or single 
feathers stuck all over it. Nearly all the 
men wore little dressed-leather aprons 








STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


behind, some edged with beads, some not. 
Many wore knives, almost encircling the 
right wrist, measuring one and a half to. 
three inches in width and guarded with 
leather. The iron hooked finger ring for 
tearing the enemy’s flesh at close quarters 
was also common. Most had a necklet 
of iron wire, or in some cases a ‘masher’ 
collar formed of several rings one above 
the other. This held a lump of elephant 
fat, which as it melted trickled down the 
chest—a mark of opulence and fashion. 

HABITS OF THE TRIBE. 

“The men of the tribe wore no clothes, 
but their women—who were not prepos¬ 
sessing—wore hide skirts, those of the 
girls often rather prettily embroidered 
with beads. A few men had fine giraffe 
tails as tassels fastened just above the left 
elbow. Their spears were mostly like the 
Karamoja’s; a few were larger and had 
blades less leaflike. The shields were also 
like those of the Karamoja, hut generally 
larger. A few had snuff boxes of small 

o 

tusks of a cow’s tail, the long hair being- 
left on the open end closed by a leather 
cap.” 

Leaving the Aarash valley. Major 
Powell-Cotton went in a northwesterly 
direction and came to a range of bills, 
along the foot of which were many brack¬ 
ish pools. The whole countryside was 
studded with the remains of elephants, 
greatly to his surprise. In all bis jour- 
neyings through the elephant country he 
never before had found two skeletons to¬ 
gether. “I thought,” he said, “that some 
fell disease had attacked a vast herd, but 
on questioning my guide, he said : ‘Oh, 
no; this is the place where the elephants 


079 


come to die. We often come here to pick 
up the ivory.’ 

CEMETERY OF ELEPHANTS. 

“I had heard of places like this from 
the Swahili traders. One man in par¬ 
ticular had told me that far away to the 
east of Lake Rudolph he had come upon 
one of these elqdiant cemeteries, and in a 
few days had collected more ivory than 
his caravan could carry; hut I had always 
regarded these stories as fables, till here 
under my own eyes was the proof of their 
truth.” 

Before reaching the headwaters of the 
Nile, where he took boat for a more civ¬ 
ilized clime, Major Powell-Cotton en¬ 
countered the warlike Dodinga. from 
whom he had difficulty in escaping. He 
found the men to he well over six feet 
high. They were naked save for a lot of 
brass armlets and wristlets. Nearly all 
the men had two cuts on each cheek and 
on the forehead, like the Soudanese. 
Their women had a regular pattern 
scored on the body, and the head partly 
or wholly shaved. 

POTO-LA.—RESIDENCE OF THE 
DALAI LAMA. 

Poto-la, as shown in the above sketch, 
is a magnificent example of characteristic 
Tibetan architecture. The hill, which is 
flanked and capped by the Dalai Lama’s 
grand palace, towers some 300 feet above 
the city. The walls of the palace are of a 
dark red color, long lines of stone steps 
lead up the face of the hill to the building 
proper, and the audience chamber is at 
the highest portion of the pile, from 
which is obtained a magnificent view of 
the fertile valley, with the distant hills 
and, immediately below, the gilded spires 






680 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


of the sacred shrine of Jokhang and other 
temples set in groves of green. In the 
reception hall three rows of pillars, four 
in a row, support the roof, and a skylight 
is used for illumination. Sarat Chandra 
Das describes it as hung with rich bro¬ 
cade. The religious utensils were all of 
gold, and behind the throne were tapes¬ 
tries and a satin canopy. The floor was 
smooth and glossy, and the doors and 
windows were all red. The throne itself 


was supported by carved lions, and cov¬ 
ered with silk scarfs. It was about four 
feet high, six feet long, and four feet 
broad. Among the State officers was the 
Kuchar Khanpo, with a bowl of holy 
water colored yellow with saffron; the 
censer-carrier, with a golden censer with 
three chains; the Solpon chenpo, with a 
golden teapot; and other household of¬ 
ficials. Two gold lamps burned on either 
side of the throne. 


NOTABLE AND CURIOUS ITEMS OF INTEREST. 


TAIL OF A COMET. 

The tail of a comet indicates waste of 
substance, for the tail which we see today 
is not the tail we saw yesterday, any more 
than the smoke of the steamer leaving 
Liverpool is the same smoke that we see 
when the steamer enters New York har¬ 
bor. The tails are in the form of a hol¬ 
low' truncated cone with a dark or bright 
stripe in the centre. At every subsequent 
return of the periodic comets to peri¬ 
helion, it is seen that the tail becomes 
shorter and shorter; the gases thrown off 
are never regathered by the nucleus, but 
are dissipated throughout space. The 
comet thus becomes smaller and less 
luminous, and finally ceases to be visible. 

ORIGIN OF DIAMONDS. 

Quite recently the startling discovery 
of a perfect diamond, imbedded in a 
meteor, has been made, and this has given 
rise to the well-founded opinion that dia¬ 
monds are of celestial origin—are, in 
fact, visitors and not natives of the earth. 
The volcanic theory of their origin is un¬ 
tenable for many reasons, among which 
may be mentioned that diamonds cannot 


be formed in the presence of oxygen, and 
although all the necessary conditions of 
heat, pressure, and electrical energy are 
possible in volcanic action, yet these were 
never succeeded by sudden low 7 tempera¬ 
ture which scientists have shown to be 
equally requisite for the crystallization of 
carbon to form a diamond. Again, geol¬ 
ogists have never been able to assign a 
place in the terrestrial strata for dia¬ 
monds, which are always found in iso¬ 
lated places and never in the masses of 
carbon such as the coal measures. They 
have different refractive powers in their 
interior and exterior parts owing to the 
tension generated during their crystalliza¬ 
tion. The diamonds of Kimberley, South 
Africa, are liable to crack on coming into 
the air, and the diamonds of the meteorite 
found in Arizona have done the same 
thing. This singular relationship tends 
to show 7 that they have been subjected to 
conditions of pressure and temperature 
unknown to any terrestrial era through 
which they may have passed. Moreover, 
they have a different law of crystallization 
from the carbon of terrestrial origin and 
formation, 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


681 


ATMOSPHERE AND CLOUDS. 

According to recent theories the at¬ 
mosphere surrounding the earth extends 
several hundred miles upward instead of 
only 60 as was formerly thought. The 
real distance is estimated at 500 miles by 


ninety miles an hour. The thunder clouds 
of the summer season are sometimes 
seven or eight miles tall from base to sum¬ 
mit. 

The aeronaut Glaisher was carried to 
the* height of seven miles in a balloon in 



To Hit Your Foe Without Letting Him See You. 

Mr. G. Waller, an officer in the Swedish Army, has invented a new fusil. When soldiers 
are firing from a rifle pit they are obliged to expose their heads. To obviate this Mr. 
Waller has put a little mirror on the rifle, which permits the soldier to aim with the 
greatest accuracy and yet keep himself hidden. Experiments undertaken with this 
device have given good results. The mirror may be taken off and hidden in a box in 
the butt-end of the rifle. 


observing the descent of meteors through 
space. 

Clouds of feathery forms extend ten 
miles overhead. They are highest in 
summer and lowest in winter, sometimes 
descending to within half a mile of the 
earth. Though they seem to move slow¬ 
ly they travel really at the rate of sixty to 


1862. This is the greatest height ever 
reached by man. Six miles up the rari- 
fied air would produce unconsciousness, 
unless oxygen were supplied artificially. 

THE HEAVIEST RAINFALL. 

The annual rainfall on the Khasia 
Hills, to the northeast of Calcutta, 









6b2 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


amounts to some 600 inches, 500 inches 
of which falls in seven months, during 
the southwest monsoon. It is undoubted¬ 
ly the wettest spot on the globe. As 
many as 150 inches have been registered 
in five consecutive days, or an average 
of 30 inches a day. This astonishing 
amount is due to the abruptness of the 
mountains which face the Bay of Bengal, 
from which they are separated by 200 
miles of low swamps and marshes. 

LAND HEIGHTS. 

The mean height of land above sea 
level, according to the most scientific 
geographers, is 2,250 feet. The mean 
depth of the ocean is 12,480 feet. Only 
two per cent of the sea (oceans in gen¬ 
eral) is included inside a depth of 500 
fathoms, while seventy-seven per cent lies 
between 500 and 3,000 fathoms. If the 
land were filled into the hollows of the 
seas, water would roll over the earth’s 
crust to a uniform depth of two miles. 

HOT ARTESIAN WATER. 

An artesian well at Boise, Idaho, spurts 
water with a temperature of 170 degrees 
F. This water is largely used to heat 
Boise. The water is piped from about 
one mile distant, losing only four or five 
degrees in transit. 

UNDERGROUND WATER. 

The earth contains an abundance of 
water, even in places like some of our 
great western plateaus, where the surface 
is comparatively arid. The greatest 
depth at which underground water can 
exist is estimated to be about six miles. 
The amount of water in the earth's crust 
is reckoned at nearly one-third of that 
contained in the oceans, so that it would 
cover the whole surface of the globe to a 


depth of from 3,000 to 3,500 feet. The 
waters underground flow horizontally 
after sinking below the unsaturated zone 
of the rocks, but in the sands of the Da¬ 
kota formation, which supply remarkable 
artesian wells, the motion does not exceed 
one or two miles a year. The underflow 
toward the sea beneath the great plains 
may sometimes take the form of broad 
streams. 

TO BRING DOWN SOOT. 

Zinc is a peculiar metal in many re¬ 
spects. It volatizes easily and the oxide 
thus produced has a strong affinity for 
carbon. If one’s chimney is clogged up 
with soot and the owner desires to get 
rid of it, all that is necessary is to throw 
a little zinc scrap into the fire. Any old 
zinc will do, and very little will suffice to 
keep the chimney clean if used about once 
a week. The vapor of zinc oxide seizes 
upon the carbon of the soot and forms a 
new chemical compound, part of which 
goes up the flue and part falls to the bot¬ 
tom, to be shoveled out as ashes. 

SOME NOTABLE BRIDGES. 

Niagara Suspension bridge, built by 
Roebling in 1852-55, cost .$400,000; 245 
feet above water; 1,268 feet long; esti¬ 
mated 1,200 tons. 

Brooklyn bridge, New York, was com¬ 
menced under the direction of J. Roeb¬ 
ling in 1870, and completed in about 
thirteen years; 3,475 feet long, 135 feet 
high. Cost $15,000,000. 

Canti-Lever bridge, 1884, over the 
Niagara, steel. Length, 910 feet; weight 
3,000 tons. Cost, $222,000 

Victoria bridge, at Montreal, over the 
St. Lawrence river (tubular), 9,144 feet 
long. 






STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


G 83 


Louisville, over the Ohio river 
(truss), 5,218 feet long. 

St. Louis, over the Mississippi river 
(steel), 2,045 f eet long. Cost over 
$6,000,000. 

The old London stone bridge, com¬ 
menced in 1176, completed in 1209. 

FOUR KINDS OF YEARS. 

There are four kinds of years for the 
people who live on the earth. 

The lunar year, the time required for 
moon travels around the earth twelve 
times. This is 354 days 8 hours 48 mhi- 
utes long, and is the year of the Jews. 
It is 11 days shorter than the solar year. 
To make good this defect the Hebrews 
add a thirteenth month of 30 days every 
third year, but even then they are still 
three days behind solar time. 

The solar year is the time in which 
the earth completes one journey around 
the sun. This is 365 days 5 hours 48 
minutes 49 seconds long. 

The sidereal year, the time required for 
the earth to travel around the sun and re¬ 
turn to the same position with respect to 
the sun and a given fixed star, is 365 days 
6 hours 9 minutes 9 seconds. 

The anomalistic year is the period in 
which the earth revolves from perihelion, 
the nearest point to the sun, back to peri¬ 
helion again. This year consists of 365 
days 6 hours 13 minutes 49 seconds. 

STRANGE CONSEQUENCES OF 
WAR. 

The strange and interesting fact, 
founded on scientific observation, that 
war always brings as a corollary a great 
increase in the birth rate of boys, is re¬ 
called in connection with the birth of a 
son to the Czarina. In peace the imperial 


family’s hopes failed. In war they were 
realized. It is a matter of record that 
following the Civil war in America the 
birth rate for several years was heavily 
in favor of boys. 

GROWTH OF THE HAIR. 

If the hair on your head did not fall 
out it would grow to the tremendous 
length of 39 feet in 72 years, and would 
be an intolerable nuisance. When you 
think that there are about 80,000 hairs on 
a woman’s head it is easy to see what a 
mass she would have to carry if she did 
not cut it and it grew almost forty feet 
long. Placed end to end there would be 
600,000 miles of hair, reaching from the 
earth to the moon and back, with 100,000 
miles to spare. 

SUPPOSITION OF CONTINUOUS 
GROWTH. 

If a man were to keep on growing all 
his life at the same rate that he starts at, 
he would be sixty-four feet tall on his 
seventy-first birthday. 

JUMP OF MAN-FLEA. 

If a man’s legs were built in proportion 
to those of a Ilea he would be able to 
jump 800 feet at one bound. 

FISHES WORTH WEIGHT IN 
GOLD. 

The most beautiful and costly fishes in 
the world come from China, and the 
rarest and most expensive of all is the 
brush-tail goldfish. Specimens of these 
have sold for as high as $700 each, and 
in Europe the prices range from $250 to 
$500. The brush-tail goldfish is so small 
that a half-crown piece will cover it, and 
probably there is no living thing of its 
size and weight that is worth so much 
money. 




G84 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


AS OTHERS HEAR US. 

A well-known Oxford don was asked 
to speak into a phonograph and was in¬ 
terested in hearing the reproduction. He 
listened throughout, then said with 
scarcely concealed disgust: “Through 
this machine I am able to speak in a pe¬ 
culiarly bumptious and affected manner.'’ 
The worthy man had heard himself as 
others hear him, that was all. It would 
be a good thing for many of us to study 
our method of speaking through the me- 
diumfof a phonographic reproduction. 

OUR “HURRAH” VICIOUS. 

In shouting “Hurrah” we are (in these 
days unconsciously) repeating the vic¬ 
torious cry of the Cossack Tartars in pur¬ 
suit of their enemies—a cognate word to 
the “Maro” of our Indian cavalry as they 
encourage' each other to strike. Both 
words simply mean “Kill!” We should 
now adopt for this purpose the popular 
and victorious crv of “Banzai!” which 
means simply “success,” or “good for¬ 
tune.” Not only will this he a compli¬ 
ment to the Japanese, but it will supply a 
more suitable cry for civil occasions. 

VALUE OF SOOT. 

Chimney soot is one of the richest fer¬ 
tilizers known. That from coal is very 
rich in ammonia. When coal is burned, 
ammonia is set free, and during the vari¬ 
ous changes which take place during the 
process sulphite and carbonate of am¬ 
monia are both formed. 

Soot is a highly compound substance, 
containing in its composition not only 
ammonia hut lime, sulphuric acid, nitric 
acid, acetic acid, chlorine and iron, nearly 
all of which are valuable, directly or in¬ 
directly. The value of soot is well known 

r 


in England where it sells for about £10 a 
ton, or about $48. It is often thrown 
away as worthless by those who do not 
know its value, but careful farmers should 
save every ounce for use. Sprinkled 
around some kinds of plants, it often pre¬ 
vents attacks from insects, and the rains 
then carry it down into the earth, where 
it does duty as a fertilizer. Soot from 
coal has been once thought to be a very 
worthless substance, but experience and 
science have taught us to know better. 

ARE YOU A DEGENERATE? 

Professor Frederick Starr, head of the 
anthropological department of the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago, has given his class in 
elementary anthropology a list of the 
marks of degeneracy. Here they are: 

Red hair, but not for the Irish. 

Blond hair in dark races—all right for 
Swedes. 

Bat ears. 

Ears with small lobes. 

Parting hair on right side or in the 
middle. 

Gray hair before age of forty-five. 

Cross eyes. 

Left-handedness. 

Men wearing much jewelry. 

Tattooing. 

Srfub nose. 

Cowlicks in hair. 

Baldness. 

Receding chin. 

Protruding lips. 

Teeth set wide apart. 

“A person may have twelve of these 
marks of the degenerate,” said Professor 
Starr, “and be all right. If he has sixteen 
of them, pity him.” 

“You needn’t look at me so closely,” 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


685 


he remarked as the students gazed at him 
after the “teeth wide apart” rule. “I 
know I have many of the marks. 

“These marks are hereditary, and by 
them you can tell the tendency of a person 
toward degeneracy.” 

Speaking of bat ears he said: “It is 
strange that the only two bat-eared stu¬ 
dents in this class are sitting together.” 

Then he added: “I know a young man 
in one of my classes who wears four rings 
on his fingers. Within ten years that 
young man will go to ruin.” 

SECRET INKS. 

There are several ways in which two 
persons can correspond with each other 
unknown to even the people before whose 
eyes the very letter is held. Ovid taught 
young women that when writing to their 
lovers they should use new milk as ink. 
This when dried is invisible, but by scat¬ 
tering coal dust or soot upon the paper 
the writing becomes legible. Ansonius 
adopted this method when writing to 
Paulinus. 

Diluted sulphuric acid, lemon juice, so¬ 
lutions of nitrate and chloride of cobalt, 
or of chloride of copper write colorless, 
but on being heated the characters written 
with the two first become black or brown, 
and the latter green. When the paper be¬ 
comes cool the writing disappears and 
leaves the paper blank 7 again. Saltpetre 
dissolved in water and equal parts of sul¬ 
phate of copper and sal ammoniac dis¬ 
solved in water are two good invisible 
inks. On being heated the writing turns 
yellow. 

There are also some inks which are 
invisible when dry, but visible when mois¬ 
tened with another liquid. Thus a solu¬ 


tion of muriate of antimony washed with 
tincture of galls becomes yellow; green 
vitriol ink washed with the same solution 
turns black; nitrate of cobalt washed with 
oxalic acid turns blue; arseniate of potash 
with nitrate of copper, green; solution of 
gold with muriate of tin, purple. 

VAST UNDERGROUND WALL IN 
TEXAS. 

Near Rockwall is one of the most curi¬ 
ous formations in Texas. This town and 
county were named after it, and many 
contend that in spite of the opinion of 
scientists to the contrary the formation 
is the product of the toil of a prehistoric 
race of people. 

The rock wall, as it is known, extends 
along three sides of the town, but gener¬ 
ally at some distance from it, although to 
the south it is to be found within 200 or 
300 yards of the corporation line. 

No one seems to know just how long it 
is, but traces of it have been discovered 
across the river in Dallas county. 

Geologists say that the wall owes its 
origin to a volcanic upheaval. It is com¬ 
posed of stones which are three inches 
thick and from six to eighteen inches in 
length. They are piled on top of one an¬ 
other, just like brick, and with the same 
regularity. 

PLOWS TURN UP BRICKS. 

All of it is under ground. At some 
places it comes to within ten feet of the 
surface of the earth. In others one will 
have to dig down to twice that depth be¬ 
fore its top is touched. In the localities 
where it is nearest the surface plowshares 
have turned over many of the stones and 
some of the fields are plentifully be¬ 
sprinkled with them. 




BOOK OF THE TIMES 


686 


Wells have been dug down by the side 
of the wall for a distance of fully fifty 
feet, but it extends beyond that depth. 

The stones are of a light yellow aolOr 
and evidently have mica in them. There 
are some streaks, too, which closely re¬ 
semble white marble. The substance is 
very hard and when exposed to the ele¬ 
ments does not deteriorate. This is at¬ 
tested by pieces which have been left ex¬ 
posed for more than a generation. 

UNLIKE ROAD FOUND NEAR BY. 

Another curious thing about it is that 
there is no other stone in the county 
which is just like it. Rockwall county 
has some fine building stone, but it is an 
entirely different kind. It resembles more 
nearly than anything else the bricks which 
are manufactured from the clay found in 
this section. 

Many believe that this wall was built 
by prehistoric men as a fortification for a 
settlement which once stood on this very 
spot. Asked to explain why it is that the 
wall is now under ground, they call at¬ 
tention to the belief of geologists that 
once the Red river found its way to the 
sea down through this valley, and that 
it was miles in width. This black dirt, 
the theorists contend, is a mixture of 
alluvial deposits and clay, and these de¬ 
posits. they say, covered up the walls. 

COLLISION OF A LOCOMOTIVE 
AND A BOAT. 

A branch of the Philadelphia, Balti¬ 
more and Washington division of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad passes through 
Laurel, Del., on an embankment crossing 
a navigable river at that place. The rail¬ 
road bridge contains a draw which is 
swung open when vessels are passing up 


or down the river at this point. A pas¬ 
senger train happened along during one 
of the times the draw is open, and the en¬ 
gineer misunderstood the signal which 
shows when the track is clear. As a re¬ 
sult the locomotive reached the end of 
the bridge before the engineer noticed the 
danger. He reversed his lever ana applied 
the air brakes, but too late to prevent the 
ponderous machine from plunging into 
the river. Such was its momentum that 
it continued to move forward as it fell, 
and ran head on into the schooner “Gold¬ 
en Gate," which was coming through the 
draw. The front part of the engine 
struck the vessel's forward deck and part¬ 
ly crushed it in. the pilot extending down 
to the schooner's keel. It was a regular 
collision between motors for land and 
water transportation. 

SAYINGS OF JESUS NOT IN THE 
BIBLE. 

The “new sayings of Jesus" form the 
subject of a paper in the Church Quar¬ 
terly Review. A few of these sayings 
noted there may be given here. From 
long known Church Fathers: 

“Show yourselves tried money-chang¬ 
ers” ; “He that wonders shall reign, and 
he that reigns shall rest"; “In whatsoever 
I shall find you, in that I shall also judge 
you"; “He who is near me is near the 
fire; he who is far from me is far from 
the Kingdom”; “Never be joyful except 
when ye shall look on your brother in 
love." 

From sayings more recently compiled 
by Resell, of which he regards seventy- 
four as authentic: 

“The weak shall be saved by the 
strong”; “Where one man is, there, too, 





The Shroud of Christ. 

The holy shroud has been preserved for centuries in the Chapel Royal of the Cathedral at 
Turin, and is believed to be the actual cerement in which the body of Jesus Christ 
was wrapped after the crucifixion, by Joseph of Arimathea. Recently, in connection 
with an exposition of sacred art in Turin, the holy shroud was shown to the populace, 
and permission given to Signor Secondo Pia, a lawyer, to photograph the relic. On 
developing the negative he was surprised to find what had not before been suspected, 
namely, that the shroud revealed distinct impressions of a face and figure. The full 
figure occupies the centre of the photograph. The head begins about half an inch from 
the top. Near the centre the arms meet, and the hands can be seen crossed. The legs 
bend slightly inwards, and continue to the bottom of the print, the feet pointing down¬ 
wards in the position they are usually depicted on the cross. 










668 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


am I”; “Thou hast seen thy brother, thou 
hast seen thy Lord'’; “Whatsoever thou 
wouldest not have done to thyself, do 
thou not to another"; “There shall be 
schisms and heresies.” 

From Mohammedan sources: 

Jesus, asked whereby they might enter 
Paradise, said : “Speak not at all.” They 
said : “We cannot do this.” He said : 
“Then only say what is good.” Of char¬ 
ity: “If a man send away a beggar from 
his house, the angels will not visit his 
house for seven nights.” Of recognition 
of good, where others would see only 
evil: “Jesus one day walked with the 
Apostles, and they passed the carcase of 
a dog. The Apostles said: ‘How foul is 
the smell of this dog!’ But Jesus said: 
‘How white are its teeth!' ” 

From the papyri just discovered in 
Egypt: 

Jesus saith, wherever there are two, 
they are not without God, and wherever 
there is one alone, say that I am with him. 
Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find 
Me: cleanse the wood and there am I. 

Jesus saith [Ye ask who are those] 
who draw us [to the Kingdom, if] this 
Kingdom is in heaven? The fowls of the 
air and all beasts that are under the earth 
[or upon the earth and] the fishes of the 
sea, these are they which draw you, and 
the Kingdom [of Heaven] is within you, 
and [whoever] shall know himself shall 
find it. [Strive, therefore] to know your ¬ 
selves and ye shall be aware that ye are 
the sons of the [Almighty] Father. 

The reviewer ends by suggesting the 
alternatives : These Egyptian papyri rep¬ 
resent, either a collection made in the life¬ 
time of the Apostles—a gospel in the 
making; or a second century collection, 


freely expanded and augmented from 
other sources. 

PRIESTESS IS A 4,000-YEAR-OLD 
HOODOO. 

There is in London today no living 
man or woman who interests Londoners 
half as much as an Egyptian High Priest¬ 
ess who died nearly 4,000 years ago. She 
is, of course, now a mummy and known 
by the officials of the British Museum as 
Exhibit 22,452. The history of this 
mummy from the time of its discovery 
until it was bought by the museum is one 
of death and disaster, and after having 
been quiet for a long time its spell seems 
to have been at work again. 

The gentleman who bought it from its 
Arab finder in 1864 lost his fortune within 
a few weeks, and shortly afterward died. 
Two of his servants, who had handled 
the sarcophagus, died within twelve 
months. A third has lost his arm, owing 
to a gunshot wound. 

On being transferred to London the 
case brought unmeasured misfortune to 
its new owner. Then came a startling 
development which suggested a connec¬ 
tion between these disasters and the 
mummy case. 

A photographer who attempted to 
make a picture of it got a negative, not 
of the cast of a face which is on the box, 
but of a living Egyptian woman, whose 
features wore an aspect of horrid malig¬ 
nity. Shortly afterward that photog¬ 
rapher died. 

The case was then transferred to the 
British Museum. The carrier who re¬ 
moved it thither died within a week, and 
one of the men who helped to set it in 
its place broke his leg next day. 





STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND TACTS 


Such is the record history of the coffin 
cover up to a few weeks since. 

A gentleman interested in Egyptology 
desired a photograph of the mummy case, 
and a few days ago commissioned Mr. 
Mansell, a well known photographer, to 
take one. As the case stands in an awk¬ 
ward angle, Mr. Mansell's son and his 
photographer visited the museum to¬ 
gether to confer as to the best means of 
performing the work. 

When returning home in the train Mr. 
Mansell, Jr., smashed his thumb so badly 
that he was not able to use his right hand 
for some time. The photographer got 
home safely, but only to find that one of 
his children had fallen through a glass 
frame and sustained dangerous injuries. 

JAPANESE PETITION IN BLOOD. 

The accompanying illustration is a 
facsimile of a Japanese sailor's applica¬ 
tion, written in blood, for enrollment in 
the corps of men resolved to fight till 
death. Admiral Togo, commander-in- 
chief of the combined Japanese squad¬ 
rons, in bis reports regarding the first 
blockade expedition, stated that in en¬ 
forcing his decision to block the mouth of 
Port Arthur he proposed to raise Kesshi- 
tai (a corps of men resolved to fight till 
death), and immediately obtained nearly 
2,000 applicants, of whom some sent in 
applications written or signed with their 
own blood. It is now ascertained that 
the man who wrote the petition with blood 
was the second-class warrant-officer Mon- 
pei Hayashi, belonging to the battleship 
Mikasa, and the other who made the blood 
signature was a first-class bluejacket 
named Suyekichi Inouye. The former bit 
his finger, and, making ink of the blood, 


089 


which he collected in a dish, wrote the 
application. The Emperor has been 
pleased to keep the blood-autograph as 
reproduced above. The application, being 
translated, runs as follows: February 18. 
1904.—Commander Hikojiro Ijichi, H. I. 
M. S. Mikasa.—Sir,—I being desirous of 
participating in the volunteer corps now 
being raised entreat you to select me, 
hereby sending in application written 



with my own blood.—M onpei Hayash.i. 
(Seal.)” 


WHAT TIME IS IT? 

What time is it? By what system are 
the clocks here and elsewhere regulated? 
Chicago and other points in the United 
States east of the Rocky Mountains get 
their time every day from the government 
observatory at Washington. The terri¬ 
tory west of the Rockies is served the 
same way by the observatory at Mare 
Island navy yard near San Francisco. 
These signals are sent out when it is noon 
at Washington and, three hours later, 
when it is noon at San Francisco. Chi- 





69U 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


cage gets its time at eleven o’clock here, 
when it is noon at Washington. The 
signal begins at five minutes before the 
hour. Then the sounders in the telegraph 
offices connected with Washington begin 
to tick off the seconds, with breaks of five 
seconds at the end of each minute and a 
break of ten seconds before the end of the 
fifth and final minute, and then comes the 
noon signal. 

Time thus sent out is very accurate. 
The transmitting clock that gives the sig¬ 
nals is corrected shortly before noon every 
day from the mean of three standard 
clocks that are rated with star sights, with 
a meridian transit instrument. The noon 
signal is seldom in error more than two- 
tenths of a second, although, according 
to the government bulletin, a tenth more 
may be added by the relays in use on long 
telegraph lines. Electric transmission 
over a continuous wire is practically in¬ 
stantaneous. The time signal has been 
sent from Washington to the Lick Ob¬ 
servatory, California, in 5-100 of a sec¬ 
ond; to the national observatory in the 
City of Mexico in 1.19 seconds; to Green¬ 
wich, England, in 1.33 seconds; to Syd¬ 
ney, Australia, in 3.5 seconds and Wel¬ 
lington, New Zealand, in 4 seconds. 

Previous to about 1883 it had been cus¬ 
tomary for railroads to use throughout 
large sections of their territory the local 
time of one of the principal cities through 
which they passed. Great confusion fol¬ 
lowed, as many as five different kinds of 
time having been used in a single town. 
In 1882 the prime meridian conference 
met in Washington and recommended 
the use of Greenwich, England, civil time 
as an international standard. This stand¬ 
ard is generally used throughout the 


world now. The United States and 
Canada selected a series of standard me¬ 
ridians differing in longitude from Green¬ 
wich by multiples of 15 degrees, or one 
hour each. The new standard took effect 
throughout the continent Nov. 18, 1883. 

A RAILROAD COSTING $300,000 PER 
MILE. 

Official announcement has been made 
that on June 19 the entry of the Gould 
system into Pittsburg will become an ac¬ 
complished fact by the operation of the 
first regular train into that city from the 
West over the Wabash road. The rail¬ 
road and financial worlds have been some¬ 
what staggered at the prodigal expendi¬ 
ture of $75,000,000, estimated by the 
Goulds with a view of reaching the coun¬ 
try’s richest tonnage storehouse. The ap¬ 
parent disregard of expense is illustrated 
by the construction of twenty miles of 
road between Mingo Junction and Jewett, 
which is the most costly and in many re¬ 
spects the most remarkable stretch of rail¬ 
road in the world. 

In order to get an air line and a low 
grade road through the mountains, and 
thereby reduce the cost of transportation 
below that necessitated on the Pennsyl¬ 
vania, about $6,000,000 was used in build¬ 
ing this twenty miles of road. Between 
the points named the road literally springs 
from hill to hill by means of enormous 
fills, some of which are 100 or more feet 
deep. In the twenty miles there are eight 
tunnels, five concrete arch culverts, each 
of fifty-foot span, and fifty large fills. 

One fill 3.500 feet long required more 
than 1,000,000 cubic yards of earth, and 
a total of 150,000 barrels of cement was 
used in concrete arches and piers. The 




STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


691 


maximum grade is only thirty-five feet to 
the mile, and there is not a curve over 
three degrees. So nearly straight has the 
road been made hy disregarding every ob¬ 
stacle nature has opposed that it is pos¬ 
sible to stand on the west side of the first 
Ohio tunnel and look through it across 
the trestles and over the bridge and 
through the tunnel in the West Virginia 
hill. The longest tunnel is the Hanna, 
1,500 feet in length, and the shortest the 
Oliver, 339 feet. 

I11 procuring this expensive air line a 
number of country roads were abandoned 
and new and costly ones constructed in 
their stead by the railroad company, and 
the courses of two mountain streams were 
changed so that their swollen torrents 
might not be a menace in floodtime. Not 
a single mile of the road is without its 
fill or cut, and of the former there are 
twenty-six, ranging from 200 feet long to 
three-quarters of a mile, and from twenty 
to one hundred feet deep. Across the 
farms in the valley some remarkable via¬ 
ducts bad to be built, one of them seventy 
feet high and 700 feet long. An idea of 
the heavy and substantial construction re¬ 
quired is gathered from a concrete arch 
at the foot of Chapel Hill. It is a fifty- 
foot span with a “barrel” 180 feet long, 
the entire culvert containing 17,000 cubic 
yards of concrete and 20,000 barrels of 
cement, the largest single mass of concrete 
in the form of an arch in the world and 
costing $135,000. 

When it is remembered that there are 
few examples of mountain construction 
which have cost as high as $100,000 a 
mile and that the average cost is prob¬ 
ably nearer $60,000. while ordinary rail¬ 
road construction does not average half 


the latter figure, there is a realization of 
the dogged determination which has 
marked the Goulds' advance to tide water. 
THE PAN-AMERICAN RAILROAD. 

The Pan-American railroad project 
contemplates continuous rail communica¬ 
tion between New York and Buenos 
Ayres, a distance of 10,471 miles. The 
plan was first conceived by an American 
consul, Mr. Helper, forty years ago. It 
remained in the visionary stage until 
1890, when the first Pan-American con¬ 
ference met in Washington. 

The result of the great interest which 
this conference took in the project was 
the appropriation of funds by this coun¬ 
try and other American republics for pre¬ 
liminary surveys. These surveys were 
finished in 1895. It was found that about 
half the required distance of 10,471 miles 
was already covered by railroads. With 
the lines either built or in course of con¬ 
struction there was a through communi¬ 
cation from New York to the northern 
boundary of Guatemala. There was al¬ 
ready built in Central and South Amer¬ 
ica 1,417 miles, leaving 5,285 miles to be 
constructed. 

Since the survey was made about 500 
miles of road have been built in different 
parts of the southern continent as part of 
the Pan-American system, and the gaps 
between the railroads of the several coun¬ 
tries are being gradually spanned. With¬ 
in the last few months Chile has awarded 
contracts to English and American firms 
for tunneling the Andes. This will close 
the gap between that country and Ar¬ 
gentina and bring Santiago into all rail 
communication with Buenos Ayres. Bo¬ 
livia is pushing a railroad south along the 
route of the Pan-American survey to con-< 





602 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


nect with the Argentine system. Peru 
has passed a law establishing a perma¬ 
nent railroad guarantee fund out of the 
tobacco tax, and is engaged in active sur¬ 
veys for railway routes. 

The time is coming when the Ameri¬ 
can can go by rail from any city in his 
country to Buenos Ayres. Thence by 
steamer he can traverse the limitless 
waterways of the southern continent; 
over to Rio de la Plata and the Parana 
to the Amazon; through its myriad trib¬ 
utaries into Bolivia. Peru and Ecuador; 
then to Colombia and Venezuela through 
the deep “primeval hush” of rivers which 
lead through savannas and boundless for¬ 
ests to the Orinoco. 

THE STEEPEST RAILWAY IN THE 
WORLD. 

When the Jungfrau railway is com¬ 
pleted it will unquestionably be the steep¬ 
est railway in the world, for its grade is 
within 2 per cent of 45 degrees. 

The Jungfrau, one of the most beau¬ 
tiful mountains in Europe, is one of the 
chief peaks of the Bernese Alps, and rises 
far above the limits of perpetual snow. 
For many years all efforts to render this 
virgin mountain more accessible proved 
unavailing, until the late Guver-Zeller of 
Zurich solved the problem that had puz¬ 
zled so many engineers. In 1894 he ob¬ 
tained a concession extending over eighty 
years from the Swiss federal council for 
what is unquestionably one of the most 
stupendous engineering feats ever at¬ 
tempted. 

The difficulty of the project was in¬ 
creased by the fact that the Eiger and 
the Moenich had to be pierced before the 
Jungfrau could be entered in order to 
obtain the required grade. But in Au¬ 


gust, 1896, all preliminary obstacles had 
l>een surmounted, the line of railway had 
been decided upon and rail laying had 
been begun. And in September, 1898, 
the first section was opened. 

The starting point of the railway is at 
Sheidegg, on top of the Wengernalp, 
which may be conveniently reached by 
rail from Interlaken. From here an elec¬ 
tric car takes you to' the Mer de Glace 
station, which has just been completed, 
and is the present terminus of the road, 
10,720 feet above sea level. The trolley 
line runs first on open ground, gradually 
ascending on the slopes of the great snow¬ 
capped Figer. 

When the mountain side is reached the 
line plunges into the rock at a grade of 
25 per cent. Thus far only four miles of 
the six-mile tunnel have been completed, 
the length of the entire road, as projected, 
being eight miles. The work of tunnel¬ 
ing is slow, owing to the tenacious char¬ 
acter of the calcareous rock. At the pres¬ 
ent rate of progress—two yards a day— 
it will be several years before the remain¬ 
der of the task will be accomplished. 
Three hundred Italians delve in the 
hearts of these mountains all the year 
round, being cut off from the world dur¬ 
ing the winter months—exiles in the 
snow. 

FRENCH MONUMENT AT WATER¬ 
LOO. 

The monument, from a design by the 
French sculptor, Gerome, is of a most 
striking character. It rests on a stone 
pedestal, and takes the form of a gigantic 
eagle wounded to death. The site se¬ 
lected for the monument is near the Cail- 
lou farm, on the spot where the last square 




G 03 


STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


of the Old Guard under Cambronne was 
annihilated. 

M. E. Detaille, the well-known French 
painter and president of the Sabretache 
Society, who took a leading part in the 
ceremony of unveiling, which was most 
imposing, made a speech in which he paid 
a tribute to the bravery displayed by the 
armies of the First Empire. After for¬ 
mally handing over the monument to the 


gratulated the Sabretache Society, the 
promoters of the monument, on their 
work. “We know,” he said, “that it is 
not a monument of victory that we are 
setting up. It is a cenotaph to the noble 
vanquished of Waterloo. Side by side 
with the Belgian, British, Hanoverian, 
and Prussian monuments, we desired to 
see a French memorial also in this burial 
place of glory.'' M. Gerard, the French 



All that was left of a Russian convoy caught by Japanese shell-fire. 


care of the Belgian people, he continued: 
“Although time has healed old sores, and 
although our valiant adversaries have 
since been our brothers in arms, the great¬ 
ness of the event which we are com¬ 
memorating has not diminished. Our 
feelings remain the same, and we may give 
way to them with less fear of offending 
susceptibilities, but with the same sin¬ 
cerity as our fathers." 

M. Henry Houssaye, of the French 
Academy, in an eloquent speech, con- 


minister in Brussels, said he was there 
as the representative of the French gov¬ 
ernment, who desired to associate itself 
with those present in the pious ceremony 
for which they had assembled. 

Lieutenant-General Bruylant, com¬ 
mandant of the Belgian Military School, 
said the Titanic combat of Waterloo was 
no longer looked upon by the world as 
anything else but the highest expression 
of bravery, military virtue, and patriotic 
exaltation. During the ceremony a selec- 












694 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tion of military airs of the time of Water¬ 
loo and Beethoven's Funeral March were 
played by a band. 

STRANGE PLACE FOR A LEC¬ 
TURER. 

There is in Paris a “Society for Lec¬ 
turing in Prisons," which frequently sends 
lecturers to address the prisoners, the 


which can be seen the heads of the audi¬ 
ence. In this strange manner the prison¬ 
ers are enabled to see the lecturer, but 
prevented from holding any communica¬ 
tion with one another. Mutual recogni¬ 
tion on release is thus also rendered im¬ 
possible. These lectures against drunk¬ 
enness are believed to have some influence 



A peculiar place for temperance lectures. 


evils of drunkenness being a favorite 
topic. Such a lecture forms the subject 
of our artist’s drawing. The lectures are 
given in an immense hall, on one side of 
which, reaching almost to the roof, are 
what look like steps, but on closer inspec¬ 
tion prove to be rows of boxes with 
openings about four inches high, through 


on the diminution of crime, which has 
lately been marked in France, and in fu¬ 
ture they are to be given more frequently 
and in a larger number of prisons. 

THE VATICAN. 

The Pope has his home in the Palace of 
the Vatican at Rome. This stupendous 
building is 1,000 feet in breadth and 1,200 

















STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


6 y 5 


in length. It is made up of many parts 
erected at different intervals by different 
architects in the prevailing style of archi¬ 
tecture of the time. 

The galleries of the Vatican are noted 
as containing the works of the greatest 
masters. In Raphael's galleries all Bible 
history is painted upon the arched ceil¬ 
ings. In the Camere di Raffaello are fres¬ 
coes and paintings of the most famous 
artists and painters. The Vatican library 


said to be effected, and 9,000 masses were 
said. On the closing day of the pilgrim¬ 
age a procession of over 2,000 priests 
marked the end of the ceremonies, al¬ 
though individual pilgrimages take place 
at all times of the year. 

Lourdes is a small town in the depart¬ 
ment of the Hautes-Pyrenees, on the Gave 
de Pan, near Tarbes. The town contains 
an ancient castle, and the basilica and the 
subterranean church of the Rosary are 



contains most sacred literary relics of the 
Church. There is a room of manuscripts 
written on Egyptian papyrus. The gal¬ 
leries of Belvidere contain a vast array 
of the greatest and most ancient works 
of sculptors, including priceless antiquities 
from Bible lands. 

PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES. 

The pilgrimage is held for three days 
every year in the week immediately fol¬ 
lowing the feast of the Assumption. Dur¬ 
ing the period of 1903, 950 patients were 
carried to the grotto where the cures are 


noteworthy, but interest centres in the 
grotto in which the Virgin is said to have 
appeared to a peasant girl, Bernadette 
Soubirons, in 1858. and disclosed to her 
the miraculous properties of the spring 
which the pilgrims visit. The belief in 
the healing quality of the spring is so 
widespread and so firmly held that 
a short time ago a well-known Ro¬ 
man Catholic peer in England vis¬ 
ited the grotto with his invalid son and 
heir in the hope that a cure might he ef¬ 
fected. The fact that the pilgrimage was 
fruitless in this as in other cases appears 


















600 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


to have done little to disturb the faith of 
the pious believers. 

In the records of Lourdes are the per¬ 
sonal testimony of many thousands of 
miraculous cures. 

RUSSIA’S RICH SEAL AND OTTER 
ROOKERIES. 

Among the most jealously guarded 
treasures of the imperial Russian crown 
are the great seal and sea otter rookeries 
on the islands in the Okhotsk sea and 
off the coast of Kamchatka. 

In 1854 and 1855, in the midst of the 
Crimean war, when the Russian warships 
had unavoidably been withdrawn from the 
duty of guarding these valuable rookeries, 
a fleet of enterprising vessels, mostly 
American whalers, exploited them, many 
of them obtaining valuable cargoes of 
furs, one vessel alone, a small bark hailing 
from New London, Conn., securing no 
fewer than 55,000 fur sealskins, all of 
which brought an unusually high price in 
the London market on account of the war 
then prevailing, which had cut off the 
regular Russian supply. 

The rookeries were for the time being 
practically destroyed, and it was years be¬ 
fore the Russian government was en¬ 
abled to kill any of the fur-bearing ani¬ 
mals that used to abound on the islands. 
By careful management, however, the 
rookeries were gradually restored, and by 
1875 they had so far recovered that the 
authorities were enabled to begin killing 
in a small way. 

From this time onward the seal herd 
showed a steady and healthy growth, al¬ 
though on account of the unparalleled 
boldness of the seal poachers who fitted 
out in Japan and sailed under various flags 
-—American, British, Dutch, German, 


Swedish, etc.—the Russian government 
was obliged to maintain the strictest vigi¬ 
lance and to keep a fleet of from four to 
eight war vessels constantly on guard 
about the islands during the breeding 
season. 

The best of the otter skins have never 
come into the market; they have always 
been exacted and taken for the use of the 
Russian imperial family, and are conse¬ 
quently without price. 

For years the Japanese pelagic sealers 
have cast longing eyes at the rich treasures 
on the Russian islands, and have had to 
content themselves with such meager pick¬ 
ings as could be gleaned outside of a 
thirty-mile limit off the islands. 

ADVENTUROUS SEALERS. 

Occasionally a few of the bolder spirits 
would venture inside of the thirty-mile 
line which had been arbitrarily drawn 
about the islands by the Russian govern¬ 
ment, but nearly always with disastrous 
results, for no sooner did their schooner 
approach anywhere near the rookeries 
than perhaps around the nearest point of 
land a column of smoke would appear, 
and next a sixteen-knot cruiser at full 
speed, a blank shot, next a shell or two, 
and a few days after the vessel would join 
a fleet of others that had gone before at 
Petropaulovski, while the unfortunate 
crew would be on board a steamer bound 
for Vladivostok, and it would be many 
years before they returned to their friends 
in Japan, while those who did return 
would always have a tale of horror to 
tell about the treatment they had re¬ 
ceived. 

More than 200 Japanese were employed 
in raids during the war, and the value of 
the furs and fish they secured amounted to 



STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND TACTS 


007 


over $7,500,000, while it is impossible 
to calculate the damage that was done to 
the Russian rookeries. 

The sea-otter rookeries are without ex¬ 
ception the richest and heretofore the most 
closely-guarded preserves in the world. It 
is estimated that there are at least 6,000 
to 8,000 sea-otters there, and it is almost 
certain that the Japanese schooners ob¬ 
tained fully three-fourths of them, while 
they also secured from 80,000 to 100,000 
fur seals from the various breeding places. 

For the first time in fifty years the 
priceless furs hitherto selected and kept 
for the imperial family, the crown sables 
and crown sea-otter skins, came into the 
market. 

GREATEST INDIVIDUAL LAND 
OWNER IN THE WORLD. 

The wealthiest man in Mexico and one 
of the wealthiest on the American conti¬ 
nent is General Luis Terrazas, governor 
of the state of Chihuahua, which borders 
on the western and southwestern part of 
Texas. 

The wealth of General Terrazas is con¬ 
servatively estimated at $150,000,000 in 
gold, but it may be many millions in ex¬ 
cess of that amount. 

General Terrazas is seventy-five years 
old, but he is still full of mental and phys¬ 
ical vigor. He is probably the largest in¬ 
dividual land owner in the world. He 
owns in fee simple approximately 20,000,- 
000 acres of land, which is divided into 
fifteen haciendas or ranches. No one, not 
even the General himself, knows the num¬ 
ber of cattle he owns, but it is roughly es¬ 
timated that his herds approximate 1,000,- 
000 head, of which about 200,000 are 
cows. He also owns several hundred 
thousand head of horses and mules. 


An army of more than 10,000 men 
are kept constantly employed on these 
ranches, and towns of several thousand 
population are situated on the lands. 
The ranches are well fenced, and 1,000 
boundary or “fence-line” riders are kept 
constantly employed. 

The land and livestock holdings of 
General Tarrazas are a comparatively 
small part of his wealth. He owns more 
than 5,000 residences in the city of Chi¬ 
huahua, from which he derives an enor¬ 
mous annual rental. He owns a control- 
ing interest in all of the banks and other 
financial institutions of the state of Chi¬ 
huahua, and has many million dollars 
invested in manufacturing concerns in 
that state. 

GREATEST INDIVIDUAL LAND 
OWNER IN THE UNITED 
STATES. 

W. C. Greene, the multi-millionaire 
copper king, has bought the noted San 
Rafael de la Zanja ranch, in southeast¬ 
ern Arizona, paying $1,200,000 for its 
300,000 acres and the cattle upon them. 
This purchase establishes him as the great¬ 
est land owner of the North American 
continent, for hitherto, by the purchase of 
land grants, he owned about 200,000 acres 
eastward from his latest acquisition, as 
well as fully 1,000,000 acres in the nor¬ 
thern part of the Mexican State of So¬ 
nora, secured in the shape of Spanish 
land grants or through direct deed from 
the Mexican government. 

Within his Mexican domain is included 
the Cananea range of mountains, wherein 
lie the great copper mines that bear his 
name and whence have come his riches. 
On the north these holdings join his pos¬ 
sessions within the United States, the 





698 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


international line running for fifty miles 
or more across the Greene cattle range. 
All the upper San Pedro valley is his, 
and his are the ranges all around the 
towering Huachuca mountains. By his 
latest purchase this princely domain has 
been extended westward beyond the bor¬ 
der town of Nogales. 

All this is one grand cattle range where 
barbed wire fencing is bought by the 
trainload and where the cowboys em¬ 
ployed could form a regiment of Rough 
Riders. It is held as the property of the 
Greene Cattle Company, of which Greene 
has about all the stock. And it embraces 
a little ranch on the San Pedro, where 
the same “Bill'' Greene plowed and dug, 
an unsuccessful farmer, not ten years 
ago. An old business associate. B. A. 
Packhard, has been placed in charge and 
under his direction thousands of steers 
are already being driven to the alfalfa 
fields of the Salt river valley, around 
Phoenix, to be fattened for market. It is 
expected that Greene will next invade the 
field of the packer, that he may the better 
dispose of his enormous beef crop. 

The San Rafael ranch, just acquired, 
is an old Spanish land grant, bought 
twenty-one years ago, and since held by 
Senator Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania, 
Colin and Brewster Cameron, W. C. 
Whitney of New York, and a couple of 
St. Louis capitalists. The Camerons' in¬ 
terest has been the largest, and in their- 
name the sale to Greene was made. 

RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. 

Miss Krupp, who on the death of her 
father became chief proprietor of the 
world-famed Krupp works at Essen, in 
Germany, is the richest girl in the world. 


A great deal of the artillery of Russia 
and Japan, France, Germany and Italy 
was manufactured at the Krupp works; 
and during the South African war Eng¬ 
land had to apply to the Krupp works to 
supply urgently needed weapons Prac¬ 
tically every gun on every Russian and 
Japanese warship has been constructed in 
the Krupp works and similarly every gun 
mounted on every German warship, every 
Austrian warship and every Italian war¬ 
ship bears the Krupp trade-mark. Swe¬ 
den and Norway, Denmark, Holland, 
Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Tur¬ 
key, Switzerland and all the South Amer¬ 
ican countries are equally dependent on 
ihe Krupp works for their naval and mil¬ 
itary armaments. Miss Krupo is a charm¬ 
ing German girl who wields her power 
with discretion and generosity. The city 
of Essen, with its 100,000 inhabitants, is 
practically her private property, so that 
she possesses almost despotic power over 
her 25,000 employes and their families. 

GREATEST BATTLES OF MODERN 
TIMES. 

At the battle of Gravelotte, Aug. 18. 
1870, the bloodiest in the Franco-Prus- 
sian war, the Germans lost 4,449 killed, 
15,189 wounded, and 939 missing; a total 
of 20,577 oll t °f 146,000 troops engaged. 
At Gettysburg the Union loss was greater, 
with half the number engaged. 

During the six months following May 
4, 1864, the Union army sustained greater 
losses than the German army did dur¬ 
ing the whole Franco-Prussian war. The 
German losses in that war were 28,277 
killed, 85,482 wounded, and 14,138 miss¬ 
ing, a total loss of 127,897. 

Since the introduction of gunpowder 





STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


699 



An Ammunition Hoist. 

On the modern battleship one of the most ingenious of the contrivances is the ammunition 
hoist which brings up the shells from the magazine to the guns. The hollow 
masts are utilized for the purpose of hoists for the fighting-tops. 


















































TOO 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


the bloodiest battle in history was the 
Borodino, Sept. 12, 1812. There the 
Russian losses were 30,000, according 
to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, The 
French losses were 28,035. The Rus¬ 
sians engaged numbered 132,000, and the 
French 133,000. 

Though the losses were greater nu¬ 
merically than at Gettysburg, the percent¬ 
age of loss is very much less. 

The largest armies in modern history 
were marshaled at Leipsic, at the battle 
of nations, Oct. 16-19, 1813. The allies 
concentrated 330,000 men and Napoleon 
presented 175,000. The total losses were 
80,000. 

The Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71 
was one of the greatest of European wars. 
The Germans took 797,950 men into 
France. Their loss in killed and wounded 
aggregated 3.1 per cent. In the Crimean 
war the allied armies lost 3.2 per cent in 
killed or death from wounds. In the war 
of 1866 Austria lost 2.6 per cent. In the 
American Civil war the Union army lost 
4.6 per cent and the confederate army 
9 per cent. History contains no record 
of a greater percentage of loss in killed. 

LAST UNION SURVIVOR. 

The last soldier in the war for the 
Union will have passed away by 1945, ac¬ 
cording to the calculation of the govern¬ 
ment pension bureau, based on actuary 
mortality statistics. This will be forty- 
one years hence, and eighty years after 
the close of the great war. 

The last survivor of the war for in¬ 
dependence was Daniel F. Bakeman, who 
died April 5, 1869, at Freedom, N. Y., 
aged 109. eighty-six years after that war 
closed. One veteran of the war of 1812 


still survives, eighty-nine years after the 
close of the war. Veterans of the Mex¬ 
ican war are numerous. Survivors of the 
union army in the Civil war are estimated 
today at 858,002. This is how the gov¬ 
ernment pension bureau estimates the sur¬ 
vivors in the future: 


Year. Survivors. 

1904 .858,002 

1905 .820,687 

1906 .782,722 

1907 .744,196 

1908 .705^97 

1909 .665,832 

1910 .626,231 

I 9 I 5 .129,727 

1920 .251,727 

1925 .116,073 

: 93 ° . 37’°33 

1935 . 6,296 

1940 . 340 

1945 . o 


HERO OF GALLOWS MIRACLE 

SOON TO BE GIVEN FREEDOM. 

The annals of crime afford no more 
thrilling or grewsome scenes than those in 
which John Lee, now about to be re¬ 
leased after twenty years of penal servi¬ 
tude, was an actor. A servant, he was 
convicted of murdering his mistress, an 
elderly woman of Devonshire. The mo¬ 
tive suggested was that she had reduced 
his wages 12 cents a week. 

When placed on the scaffold and the 
lever was pulled, the trap refused to work. 
Again the lever was pulled without avail. 
Then the hangman and warden, standing 
each side of Lee, tried to force the trap 
down, but failed. With the rope around 
his neck, Lee was marched aside, when 
the trap immediately opened. Lee was 


















STRANGEST OF STRANGE EVENTS AND FACTS 


701 


again placed in position and again all 
efforts of the hangman and two warders 
failed to force the trap open, and amid 
a scene of terrible excitement, during 
which one warder fainted, the condemned 
man was again marched off, when the 
trap again worked without difficulty. 

A third time this awful scene was en¬ 
acted, with the same result, and the 
sheriff, unable to bear the strain anv 
longer, ordered that the proceeding stop. 
On the facts being reported to the Home 
Secretary, he commuted Lee’s sentence to 
penal servitude for life. 

Lee himself acted like a dazed man, al¬ 
lowing himself to he led backward and 
forward mechanically. The only words 
he uttered were, “I am innocent.” 

No satisfactory explanation of the 
failure of the trap was ever given. A 
white pigeon fluttered round the scaf¬ 
fold during the attempts to hang him. 

SOME REMARKABLE FEATS OF 
RAPID WORK. 

In Austria a few years ago a com¬ 
plete hospital was built and was made 
ready to receive patients within an hour, 
a feat which seems almost impossible even 
when we know that all the component 
parts of the building were at hand. It 
was in Austria, too, that the seemingly 
miraculous task of converting trees into 
newspapers within two and a half hours 
was accomplished. At twenty-five min¬ 
utes to eight o’clock in the morning three 
trees were cut down at Elsenthal. At 
twenty-six minutes to ten the trees had 
been stripped of bark, cut up and con¬ 
verted into pulp, made into paper and 
passed from the factory to the press, from 


which printed newspapers were issued at 
ten o'clock. 

There are also some novel and aston¬ 
ishing feats in the production of books. 
Some years ago a publishing house in the 
western states received an order to pro¬ 
duce 2,000 copies of a work of 350 pages, 
bound in cloth, in three days. The work 
began on Monday and on Wednesday af¬ 
ternoon the 2,000 volumes were handed 
over, while before Saturday no fewer than 
10,000 had been turned out. 

New York claims a publishing perform¬ 
ance even more astonishing than this. An 
advance copy of one of Zola’s works had 
been secured in Paris by the agent of the 
American firm, who posted it to New 
York. On its arrival it was translated 
into English, put into type, printed and 
bound, and was actually on sale within 
twenty-four hours. 

Not long ago an English boot factory 
turned out a pair of men’s shoes in the 
amazingly short space of time of twenty 
minutes. The shoes included, among 
other parts, two sewed pieces, two inner 
soles, two stiffenings, two pieces of steel 
to give a spring to the instep, two rands, 
two sole linings, twelve heel pieces, 
twenty upper pieces, thirty tacks, twelve 
nails in the heels and twenty buttons. 

Remarkable feats of swift work are ac¬ 
complished by those who have to do with 
moving railroad bridges and building 
railroads and locomotives. The new 
bridge for the Great Northern Railway 
of England at Finsbury Park was sub¬ 
stituted for the old one in the short 
space of four hours. The work start¬ 
ed at three o’clock in the afternoon, 
when powerful cranes were set to work 
to remove the ten ton girders of the 





709 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


old bridge. The new steel bridge, weigh¬ 
ing more than two thousand tons, which 
was resting near at hand on six small 
carriages, was hauled into position by 
steel crabs; it was rapidly made se¬ 
cure, the rails were connected and within 
four hours trains were running over it. 
A feat still more surprising was that of 
substituting a new bridge for the old one 
near Hatfield. Within fifty-two minutes 
the old structure, with its four lines of 


rails, had disappeared and in its place 
was a new iron girder bridge carrying six 
lines of rails, all ready for traffic. 

A complete locomotive engine was put 
together for the Great Eastern Railway 
at the Stratford works in ten hours. The 
work began early in the morning, the en¬ 
gine being photographed at the different 
stages of its construction, and the same 
evening it was actually at work pulling a 
luggage train. 





BOOK X 


RECENT CREEDS 
DOCTRINES, FORMULAS 

AND 

FADS OF THOUGHT 


A GENERAL REVIEW AND SPECIAL EXPLANATION OF 
BELIEFS PROFESSED BY LATELY FORMED 
SECTS, CULTS AND SOCIETIES NOW 
CLAIMING OUR ATTENTION 






Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery. 

The dome is in cast bronze, including interior bracing, and weighs complete about 18 tons 










































Recent Creeds, Doctrines, Formulas 

* & & & and Fads of Thought. 


«:■ 




7 /%* 'P %♦ Y %* ' t > %♦ '\' %* '4' % 4 -4' *4* '4' V T % T V T V 'i‘ V 'r ♦ T V T V T V T V '»' V V V '*' V T V 't‘ V T V 'T' V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V 


THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIALISM. 


OCIALISM stands for com¬ 
pleted democracy; that is, ab¬ 
solute freedom under repre¬ 
sentative government that 
gives equal opportunities and rights to all. 
All its great leaders claim first for this 
plan a comprehensive system of public ed¬ 
ucation. They all demand public owner¬ 
ship and management of all the instru¬ 
ments of production and distribution. 
They denounce as wholly unjust the di¬ 
vision of the aggregate income of capital 
and labor which is made under the exist¬ 
ing industrial svstem, and demand unan- 
imously the adoption of a more equitable 
basis of distribution. 

But, despite the general harmony of 
view regarding these leading principles, 
there is much discord within the socialist 
camp. Most of it arises over minor 
points, but much of it is due to differences 
over matters of fundamental importance. 
The German social democracy is menaced 
with a bad split. England has her “So¬ 
cial Democratic federation,” her “Social¬ 
ist league,” her “Fabian society,” her 
“Christian Social society.” her “Guild of 
St. Matthew,” and any number of lesser 
socialist organizations. In France there 
are “collectivists,” “Blanquists,” Brous- 
sist “possibilists,” Allemanist “possibil- 
ists,” “independents;” and one of these 
parties can hardly meet without being rent 
asunder. The socialists of the F nited 
States are fairly harmonious now, but 


their past history is largely a history of 
splits. Each of the numerous factions in 
the various countries represents a differ¬ 
ent shade of doctrine. It would take a 
hook to elucidate all the diversities of so¬ 
cialism. 

Running through the socialist ranks 
everywhere, however, is one line of cleav¬ 
age which stands out most distinctly. This 
is the line which in every country divides 
the “opportunist,” or “reformist,” from 
the “scientific,” or “revolutionary,” social¬ 
ists. The revolutionary socialists are led 
in Germany by Bebel and Liebknecht, in 
France by Guesde and Lafargue, in Italy 
by Ferri, in England by Hyndman. The 
opportunists are led in Germany by Bern¬ 
stein and Vollmar. in France by Jaures 
and Millerand, in Italy by Turati, in Eng¬ 
land by Ivier Hardie. The socialist party 
in the United States is dominated by rev¬ 
olutionary sentiment and by revolutionary 
leaders, such as Eugene V. Debs and A. 
M. Simons of Chicago, the able editor 
of the International Socialist Review. 

The revolutionists, who are usually de¬ 
vout believers in the entire gospel accord¬ 
ing to Marx, maintain that the socialist 
propaganda is a war of the laboring class, 
or proletariat, against all other classes of 
society. They would, therefore, organize 
the proletarians into a party from which 
all other persons are barred, so that when, 
in the course of industrial revolution, the 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 


TOG 


capitalistic system breaks down, the pro¬ 
letarians will be ready to seize the instru¬ 
ments of production and distribution and 
begin managing them in the interest of 
the whole people. Meantime, they would 
have socialists accept no favors from or 
offices—except for the purposes of agita¬ 
tion—under governments which they re¬ 
gard as capitalistic, but would have them 
stand aloof and wage unrelenting war 
against established institutions. Oppor¬ 
tunists believe, on the contrary, that the 
interests of all classes are pretty much the 
same. They deprecate class war, and 
would debar nobody from socialist ranks. 
The revolutionists would accomplish the 
change to socialism, without violence, if 
possible, but quite suddenly. The oppor¬ 
tunists, as their name implies, would wel¬ 
come every gain, however slight, for so¬ 
cialism, and would bring the new regime 
to pass by slow, almost imperceptible, de¬ 
grees. 

As would naturally be expected, Eng¬ 
land, the classic land of liberty, practical 
philosophy, and opportunism, is the happy 
hunting ground of the reformists. There 
is less socialism in theory and more in 
practice in that country than in any other 
in the world. The English national and 
municipal governments do everything, 
from delivering the mails and operating 
street railways to running pawnshops and 
cow meadows and furnishing midwives. 
The revolutionary socialists, as would also 
be anticipated, are strongest in Germany, 
whose philosophy has always been the¬ 
oretical and idealistic, and whose govern¬ 
ment has always been despotic. 

The revolutionists believe, with Marx 
and Engels, that government will be prac¬ 
tically abolished under socialism. “The 


state’s seizure of the means of production 
in the name of society,” says Engels, “is 
* * * its last independent act as a 

state.” There will be no cabinets, parlia¬ 
ments, standing armies, police, courts, at¬ 
torneys, or taxation under socialism, 
according to Bebel, the German leader. 
Their place will be taken by administra¬ 
tive boards. This view seems largely a 
reaction against the tyranny of European 
—and especially of the German—govern¬ 
ments. It seldom appears in the talk or 
books of the English Fabians and other 
reformist socialists. 

The question which causes the most se¬ 
vere dissension among socialists on the 
continent of Europe is as to what posi¬ 
tion they shall take in reference to the 
land problem. Land is one of the chief 
instruments of production, and the strict 
Marxian doctrine is that it, like every 
other form of private capital, must be ap¬ 
propriated and managed by and for the 
public or “collectivity.” The peasant 
farmers of Germany, France, and Italy, 
who own the little patches of land they 
cultivate, love them as they do their 
wives and babes; and fear of loss of their 
small properties has caused them almost 
to a man to oppose socialism. The peas¬ 
ant proprietors are numerous, and social¬ 
ism can hardly win against their opposi¬ 
tion. The opportunists would meet the 
difficulty by telling the peasants that pri¬ 
vate property in land will not be dis¬ 
turbed under a socialist regime until the 
tendency of capital to centralize shall have 
vested ownership of it in a few r hands. 
The revolutionists oppose giving any such 
assurances. They would have land seized 
along with stores, manufactures, and other 
instruments of production. 




RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


Search lights at Port Arthur sweeping the sea to discover Japanese torpedo boats. 


tion” of land, is consequently as funda¬ 
mental a tenet in the creed of the Eng¬ 
lish opportunist as it is in that of the 
German or French revolutionist. 

On most points the socialists of the 
United States are in harmony with the 
revolutionary socialists of Germany. 

Whether they will follow them and the 
English socialists on the land question is 


principles and yet not array the farmers 
against them is a problem which, as one 
of them admitted the other day, is “keep¬ 
ing American socialist leaders awake 
nights.” 

The chief aim of socialists is a more 
equitable system of distribution of the 
produce of society, but there is no agree¬ 
ment among them as to what system shall 


a matter for interesting conjecture. 
American socialist leaders plainly see that 
for their party to declare flatly for im¬ 
mediate public ownership of arable land 
would be to gain the hostility of all the 
millions of American farmers who own 
their farms. How to be consistent in their 


The socialists of England are not 
troubled by this agrarian question. 
Ownership of the land in England, like 
ownership of its manufactures, is already 
centralized in a few hands. There are no 
peasant farmers to “expropriate.” Im¬ 
mediate public ownership, or “nationaliza- 




















708 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


be adopted. Saint Simon favored reward- themselves with the fatalistic position that 
ing each person according to his capacity, the same process of evolution which is 
Louis Blanc advocated giving to each ac- tending to vest the ownership and manage- 
cording to his needs. Many socialists ment of the instruments of production in 
believe all should receive the same income, the collectivity will also work out an equit- 
The more orthodox Marxists do not tackle able scheme for dividing the products, 
the problem of distribution, but content 

COMMUNISM IN BOLIVIA. 


On any map of Bolivia you will find a 
big white space in the southeastern part 
of it. This large region has been neglected 
by explorers and all other white men, ex¬ 
cepting a handful of Bolivians, rubber 
collectors and a few missionaries. It was 
not known until this fall what interesting 
things are to be found in this forgotten 
corner. 

Captain Jerrmann, a well-known ge¬ 
ographer, who has been studying rubber 
resources of South America, has written 
for Petermann's Mitteilungen some re¬ 
markable facts about this region. He 
could find no map to help him on his jour¬ 
ney, and the route map he carefully pre¬ 
pared gives much fresh information. 

Most people have thought of Bolivia, 
since the war with Chile in 1879 deprived 
her of a port on the Pacific ocean, as being 
without any port through which she might 
exchange commodities directly with the 
rest of the world. But Jerrmann found 
that the republic has made a port of her 
frontier town, Puerto Suarez, on the Para¬ 
guay river. 

The name of this town is not found on 
some of the latest maps, and yet the town 
is now engaged in foreign trade. The 
goods are brought by ocean steamers into 
the Rio Plata, transferred to river steam¬ 
boats, and carried up the Paraguay to 


Puerto Suarez, where they pass through 
the custom house just as though they had 
entered a great Bolivian seaport. 

These goods would be of little use, as 
they are hundreds of miles from the set¬ 
tled parts of Bolivia, unless excellent 
means of transporting them were pro¬ 
vided. The common wagon roads of 
South America are among the worst in 
the world, but the Bolivians have built a 
road over 100 miles westward from their 
port which will compare favorably with 
the good roads of other countries. Jerr¬ 
mann calls the government of the republic 
tyrannical, and says it has used the priv¬ 
ilege it chooses to exercise to compel the 
people to work in the government service 
for a mere pittance, and thus has provided 
an excellent road at very small cost. 

The road winds westward for over one 
hundred miles through the valleys and 
forests until it reaches the navigable part 
of a stream flowing into the Rio Grande. 
The boxes are transferred from the 
wagons to small boats, which carry them 
to the northwest, and they are finally dis¬ 
tributed to the leading towns of the 
country. 

To reach the rubber district Jerrmann 
had to leave the good wagon road and 
strike north along a narrow and tortuous 
path through the dense forests. On his 



RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


709 


way he came to the country of the Gua- 
rayo Indians, of whom he gives the best 
account yet written. 

Their name means Yellow Men, and 
they have really an extremely light com¬ 
plexion. The Guarayo holds himself 
superior to the Caucasian, and it can not 
be denied that in uprightness and sturdy 
character he compares favorably with 
more civilized peoples. 

The tribe, which numbers only a few 
thousand souls, has become known simply 
because of one peculiarity: Its life is 
ordered on the communistic plan. 

Everybody works, not for himself, but 
for the common good. The people have 
a number of small settlements and four 
large ones, and are ruled with a rod of 
iron by their cacicpies. 

They derived their communistic idea 
from the Jesuit fathers who lived among 
them several centuries ago. They have 
enlarged these ideas according to their 
own notions and believe that by serving all 
each may contribute better than in any 
other way to his own well being and that 
of his tribe. 

The smaller settlements are divided into 
two sections, the larger towns into four, 
and in San Ignacio there are eight sec¬ 
tions. The supreme head of the people in 
each section is a cacique, who has under 
him a superintendent, a judge and a sec¬ 
retary, the last keeping a written record 
so that an account of all the affairs of the 
section becomes part of its history. 

There are also a number of superintend¬ 
ents of labor, one of them having under 
his direction the men who distribute the 
water, another squad supplying firewood, 
others attending to all the fann work. 
Every man detailed for farming has a 


plot of ground, for whose careful cultiva¬ 
tion he is held responsible. The crops he 
harvests go into the common store to the 
last pound or bushel, but the man is pun¬ 
ished if it is decided that the yield from 
his patch is less than it would have been 
if his industry had been greater. 

If the house of one of the tribe is burned 
it is replaced at public cost. Thus 
throughout their lives in every way each 
shares the good and bad fortune of his 
neighbors. 

The cacique is an absolute ruler, and 
disobedience to his will is severely pun¬ 
ished. Laziness is one of the worst of 
crimes and the penalty inflicted is often 
several hundred blows well put on the 
naked back with a leather strap. Even 
the women are punished in this way, re¬ 
ceiving sometimes as many as fifty strokes. 

Discipline is remarkably severe. No 
one may leave his section without permis¬ 
sion. No one may entertain a stranger 
unless the cacique consents. 

No one may marry outside of the tribe 
under any circumstances, nor take a wife 
in another section of his tribe without 
the consent of the caciques of both sec¬ 
tions. It is interesting to have these fur¬ 
ther details about this little group of South 
American Indians, whose peculiar and 
somewhat advanced civilization had al¬ 
ready carried their name abroad. 

Jerrmann at last reached the rubber 
fields after traveling many days through 
the dense forests. The tree is the Hcz’ca 
brazilicnsis, the same plant that yields 
the famous Para rubber in the Amazon 
basin, and Bolivia is supplying more and 
more of this superior rubber every year. 
The tree is known among the rubber col¬ 
lectors as the seringa. 



710 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


The explorer mentions a very curious 
fact concerning the search for other rubber 
fields in these great forests. The groups 

of rubber trees are scattered onlv here and 

• * 

there among the timber, and men are kept 
constantly in the field in search of more 
trees. 

This work is not without danger, for 
there are perils of wild beasts and of fever 
and many of the Indians are not friendly. 
The prospectors therefore travel in small 
parties, spreading out within hearing di¬ 
stance of one another during their day’s 
toil. 


A little bird with a sweet flutelike note 
is found in these groves of rubber trees, 
and, strange to say, it is not known to live 
outside of them. So the rubber collectors 
have given it the name of seringero. As 
the prospectors push forward through 
the bush they listen for the familiar 
“huwiet, huwitt, huwee” of the little bird. 

When a hunter hears the characteristic 
cry among the trees ahead of him he raises 
a glad shout that reaches his brethren 
through the woods. 

“Come here!’’ he cries. “I hear the ser¬ 
ingero singing; and here are the trees.” 


THE DOUKHOBORS. 


A remarkable community of Christian 
socialists, driven by persecution from 
Russia a few years ago, is now thriving 
and prospering rapidly in their settlement 
near Yorkton, District of East Assiniboia, 
Canadian Northwest. In 1902 their 
fanatical pilgrimage in search of the com¬ 
ing Christ aroused general attention 
toward them. If the Canadian author¬ 
ities had not dealt firmly though indul¬ 
gently with them at that time, hunger and 
cold would have reduced their numbers 
by many hundreds, and the settlement 
would have been broken up. They wan¬ 
dered about naked or half clad, and their 
wrong interpretation of isolated texts of 
Scripture led them to discard the use of 
animals in their farm work and to other 
absurd practices which made life impos¬ 
sible in an agricultural district. A special 
newspaper correspondent, who has recent¬ 
ly made a thorough investigation of the 
settlement, reports that fanaticism has 
been practically eliminated, and that the 
Doukhobors are settling down to a most 


interesting realization of their peculiar no¬ 
tions. They have forty-five villages in 
a block of six townships, and they num¬ 
ber between eight and ten thousand peo¬ 
ple. Each village contains about two 
hundred people and is a complete little 
community in itself, with its blacksmith, 
its carpenter, stables, mill, grocery or other 
shop necessary to the life of the village. 
Money and even barter are blissfully un¬ 
known here. The Doukhobor farmer or 
housewife goes to the head man of the 
village and gets boots, clothing, and gro¬ 
ceries for nothing. Work is done by 
every one without money and without 
price for every one else. When the year’s 
crops are sold, or when the earnings of 
Doukhobors who are sometimes employed 
on railways or other enterprises outside 
the villages are paid, the money is put in 
a common purse, and with this money four 
commissioners go to Winnipeg and buy 
supplies for the community wholesale. 
They could not do otherwise on principle, 
for the middleman's profit is to them as 







RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


711 


flat robbery as ever was committed. They 
have no marriage laws, although in prac¬ 
tice almost every man lives and dies the 
husband of one wife. They firmly refuse 
to register births, marriages, and deaths, 
decline to “make soldier,’’ as they phrase 


their primitive methods. Steam plows, 
steam threshing machines, traction engines 
and all the other improvements founds on 
the best-managed farms are used in tbe 
Doukhobor settlement. As a result they 
are thriving remarkably. Unselfish and 



Russian Forts Firing at the Dummy Lights Sent in by the Japanese. 

The false lights were rigged up on rough rafts, and the lights were hung to represent those 
of a ship. They were towed into position by torpedo-boats, 
and then let drift with the tide. 


military service, and are cleanly in their 
personal habits. 

With all this quaintness and paradox 
they have a keen perception of practical 
advantage and a progressive spirit that 
are surprising. Up-to-date machinery 
and implements of all kinds have replaced 


trustful among themselves, they have 
nevertheless become noted as keen bar¬ 
gainers with outsiders, so much so that in 
some cases they have acquired an unenvi¬ 
able reputation in this respect. Their 
wholesale purchases of supplies have 
always been made with a keen eye to the 













712 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


main chance, and the Winnipeg merchant 
has a thorough appreciation of his canny 
customers. Apart from that accentuated 
propensity, however, there is little that 
is objectionable in their attitude toward 
their neighbors, while the interesting 
nature of their experiment is attracting 
much attention. They owe much of their 
recent success to the wise leadership of 
Peter Verigin, their ablest man, who has 
moderated their fanaticism and induced 
them to adopt modern methods of indus¬ 


try. There are still extremists among 
them, but they are in such a small minor¬ 
ity that they are powerless to injure the 
settlement. Verigin, who is a personal 
friend of Tolstoy, is believed to have 
been strongly influenced by the great Rus¬ 
sian writer in the management of the set¬ 
tlement, and came to his present position 
through experience of much tribulation, 
having spent fifteen years in Siberian 
prisons on account of his fidelity to Douk- 
hobor principles. 


THE AMANA SOCIETY. 


This eminently successful communistic 
settlement celebrated the semi-centenary 
of its Iowa establishment 1905. But the 
Amana society itself is much older. The 
sect was founded in Germany 190 years 
ago. It thrived in the Fatherland for a 
century and a quarter, and then came 
across the waters to establish itself in the 
New World. For a dozen years the 
Amanites made their home in western 
New York, but in 1855 the advance guard 
crossed the Mississippi river and estab¬ 
lished the new colony in Iowa county. For 
a half century it has thrived,—the most 
successful communistic settlement in 
America. Today the colony numbers 
almost 2,000 inhabitants, owning prop¬ 
erty valued at about two million dollars. 

The flight of time has not affected the 
quiet, easy-going, devoted Amanites. 
Their life today is as simple and as 
wholesome as it was fifty years ago. In 
the midst of a bustling, thriving commun¬ 
ity, with development and change round 
about them everywhere, they have gone 
ahead in the ways of the founders of the 
societv, content that what was good for 


their forbears is good for themselves, yet 
prospering and enjoying life in a pure- 
hearted, clear-brained way. 

The world comes to gaze curiously at 
these quiet people, and the young people 
in Amana must needs be attracted by the 
strangers to the cities from which they 
come, and soon they will grow restless 
and long for the kind of clothes the vis¬ 
itors wear, and before long they will leave 
the quiet and peace of Amana for the 
whirl and bustle of life in the great cities. 
What honor and respect are due these sim¬ 
ple people, who, while all around them 
strive for money and position, are con¬ 
tent to live as Christ did so long ago, 
not only professing to believe, but really 
doing to others as they would have others 
do to them. 

Many erroneous ideas prevail in regard 
to the conduct of the Amana society and 
the manner of life there. Here is an out¬ 
line sketch of the settlement: 

The Amana Society, or the Community 
of True Inspiration, is purely a religious 
one. The members accept the ordinary 
Christian beliefs, practice the customs of 






RECENT EADS OF THOUGHT 


713 


primitive Christians, and believe in the 
continuity of inspiration. The founda¬ 
tion of their life is religion, and from that 
grows the community of goods. Mar¬ 
riage is permitted, but not unduly en¬ 
couraged in the very young, an age limit 
being placed for betrothal, which can be 
followed by marriage in not less than a 
year. 

The chief occupations are agriculture 
and the manufacture of woolens and cal¬ 
ico, and for the manufacture of these 
goods the community has an enviable 
reputation. Work is found for every one, 
and the children and the aged are not per¬ 
mitted to labor beyond their strength or 
years. Education is compulsory, and holi¬ 
days are rare, the children spending at 
work the hours not passed in study. 

THE SHAKER 

Near Los Gatos, Cal., in the Santa 
Cruz mountains, is “Skyland," the new 
home of a brand new sect known as the 
Shaker Buddhists. There are prominent 
people connected with the sect, and the 
vice-president, or assistant high priestess 
of this new religion, is Marie Corelli, 
author, and William T. Stead, the editor, 

also high in its councils. 

“Mother Alice," who recently visited 
San Francisco, is, if not the founder, the 
high priestess of the new cult. Accord¬ 
ing to her own story, she has traveled the 
wide world looking for a place where the 
Shaker Buddhists can live in comfort, and 
where they can contemplate nature in all 
its varied beauties. 

The Shaker Buddhists believe that in 
lovely surroundings they can improve 
their minds and so fit themselves for the 


Among these quiet people, where no 
more work is attempted than can be easily 
accomplished, where every one can have 
work, and where every one does work, 
strikes are unknown. Every one is busy, 
and as the workers grow old, lighter em¬ 
ployment is provided for them. 

The Amana houses have the appearance 
of those seen now in Germany, and the 
neatness of each little place, with the gar¬ 
den brilliant with flowers, shows the 
German blood and training of the inhab¬ 
itants. Each family has its own garden, 
and whatever is raised in it belongs to 
the family for use, or for disposal, after 
the needs have been supplied. At the com¬ 
mon store, a certain amount is credited 
for each family, varying according to the 
need, size and position of family. 

BUDDHISTS. 

higher life. In “Skyland," where all the 
conditions are as near to perfection as 
they can possibly be in the terrestrial 
sphere, “Mother Alice" hopes the devotees 
will approach that mental and also that 
physical perfection which is the aim of 
all Buddhists, whether they live in Cey¬ 
lon or on the snow-clad peaks of the 
Himalayas. 

These people do not believe in “sex.” 
They are not material. They have no pas¬ 
sions. They live in too high a plane to be 
enervated, or to be swayed by the feelings 
that animate and sometimes exercise so 
pernicious an influence on other indi¬ 
viduals. 

“Mother Alice,” after a long search for 
an earthly paradise for the new sect, feels 
that her quest has been rewarded, and 
that the place that can afford the Shaker 



714 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Buddhists that peace and quiet for the 
contemplation of higher things is in “Sky- 
land,” in the Santa Cruz mountains. 
There, she is confident, the Shaker Buddh¬ 
ists will come from all quarters of the 
world to study “the things that are not.” 
There is, it must be said, however, a ma¬ 
terial side to these devotees of perfec¬ 
tion and things beautiful. The Shaker 
Buddhists must eat as do other people, 
and they are now building huge ovens in 
which to prepare health foods. Even a 
life of self-abnegation has to be fed with 
something beyond the thinking of exalted 
ideals, though those who have had an in¬ 
sight into the preparation of these so- 
called health foods declare that they are 


well calculated to produce dreams of a 
high order. 

“Mother Alice” is a good-looking 
woman. She wears a long gown of 
unbleached linen and a peculiar coiffure 
instead of a hat. She also wears a com¬ 
pass and a band of silk on which are the 
emblems of hope. She claims that the 
cult is the “Order of the Sons of Jeru¬ 
salem.” “Mother Alice” is an English 
woman and was at one time engaged in 
literary work. She is confident that there 
will be several hundreds of Shaker Buddh¬ 
ists in California before another year has 
passed by, and believes that they will have 
the most delightful home in the world in 
“Skyland,” in the Santa Cruz mountains. 


THE DIVINE LIFE ASSOCIATION. 


A little band of worshippers who term 
themselves the Divine Life Association 
gathers thrice weekly in a vacant store in 
Brooklyn to sing and to pray and to listen 
to the preaching of the Rev. W. Henry 
Lannin, who terms himself their truth 
instructor and leader. This church (for 
the members declare that it is not a mis¬ 
sion in any sense), is, perhaps, unique 
among religious bodies. It has no affilia¬ 
tion with any other body, although it has 
been in existence about one year, and the 
services are unsectarian and fraternal. 

“Why did we select the name Divine 
Life?” said the leader, the Rev. Mr. Lan¬ 
nin, when asked about the association. 
“Simply because we like those words. Di¬ 
vine Life! Can you think of anything 
grander than that ? They mean all in all.” 

The Rev. Mr. Lannin admits that his 
little church has not made much progress 
during its twelve months’ existence, but he 


has not yet lost hope that some day he will 
see a fine edifice erected to house the flock 
which now numbers but little more than a 
score. He is not especially well blessed 
with funds, although he has a good friend 
in an elderly woman, who has sustained 
the work financially, and he has turned his 
attention, during odd moments, to paint¬ 
ing in oils, and has completed several 
works, which have been placed on exhibi¬ 
tion in one of the up-town art stores. The 
leader continues to take instruction in 
art and hopes in this manner to add to his 
income until such time as his flock is able 
to contribute to his support. 

At present, and for some months past, 
Mr. Lannin has made his home in a small 
room in the rear of the building, where he 
instructs and preaches. This is comfort¬ 
ably furnished with a small stove, folding 
bed, sofa, and the like, and here the in¬ 
structor sleeps and eats the meals he pre- 




“The genius of the Japanese for preserving secrecy in all that pertains to military operations is exem¬ 
plified by the manner in which they mask all their positions, both for guns and men. The howitzers, 
which furnished such a terrible surprise to the Russians during the battle of the Passage of the 
Yalu,- were situated on Kintato Island, and were eniplaced in pits dug in the sand, in front of 
which enormous balks of timber had been sunk upright in the ground and covered with boughs of 
trees and scrub lashed to the timber by grass ropes. At a very slight distance these erections 
could not be distinguished from the surrounding trees, and the high angle of fire precluded the flash 
of the guns—using smokeless powder—from being observed by the enemy.” 



















716 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


pares. He says the work is rather dis¬ 
couraging, but, if a bit cast down he 
plunges into literary efforts and soon for¬ 
gets his struggles. 

Mr. Lannin has already a number of 
small books published, and he has the 
manuscript for several more ready for the 
press, and is now looking for a printer. 
Most of his works have been along his¬ 
torical, scientific, astronomical and astro¬ 
logical lines. One of the manuscripts for 
which he is now looking for a publisher 
is entitled “From Chaos to Cosmos; or 
the Earth's Birth in Sacred History and 
Science.” Another is “Arcana Caelestra; 
or The Secrets of the Heavens Recalled.” 

He has fifty lectures prepared on quite 
scientific subjects, but he does not get 
the appreciative audiences he desires and 
has therefore laid them away for the pres¬ 
ent. As a stenographer Mr. Lannin says 
he is qualified to teach one or more of the 
standard systems. He has also a certificate 
telling that he is a proofreader of no mean 
reputation. And yet. for all this, Mr. 
Lannin prefers to devote most of his time 
to teaching the little band whom he leads. 

Mr. Lannin says he has traveled exten¬ 
sively in this country and in England and 
France. That was when his finances were 
in the ascendency. Mr. Lannin is a native 
of Canada and has labored in cities from 
Maine to California. But that was when 
he was a minister of the Advent Christian 
church, to which he was ordained fifteen 
years ago. His home is in Boston where, 
not long ago. he says, he declined a call 
to a church paying its pastor a salary of 
$6,000 a year. 

Mr. Lannin came to Brooklyn from 
Harlem, where he was laboring to estab¬ 
lish an Advent church about a year ago. 


Previous to going to Harlem he was pas¬ 
tor of the Advent church in Bridgeport, 
Conn. 

Asked why he had left the Advent 
church to found another church, which 
knew neither sect nor denomination, Mr. 
Lannin said he was not pleased with some 
of the doings of the church today. He 
characterized the methods resorted to by 
some churches to raise funds as out¬ 
rageous. The true believer, the man who 
had the faith, would never be in want, he 
said. So it was with the church if it lived 
up to the teachings of the Bible. 

“We welcome all believers,'’ said Mr. 
Lannin. “No applicant whose name is 
enrolled in membership with any other 
assembly of believers will be called upon 
to relinquish such membership. The spirit 
governing the loyal to Christ Association 
is distinctively an interlinking one. Its 
purpose is toward coalescence, not 
cleavage. 

“To become a member of our little body 
one has but to sign the following applica¬ 
tion, and the superintendent will issue a 
certificate of merbership, incorporated in 
which is this: 

(1) The present time, as I view it, is 
weighted with a spirit of laxity in the 
realm of morals, while faith in God’s 
revealed grace (favor), in Christ is woe¬ 
fully waning. 

(2) I believe that loyalty to Christ 

should inspire every believer’s mind and 
heart; and also an unsectarian unity of 
loving action is everywhere needed and 
demanded. * 

(3) That I may become, as oppor¬ 
tunity allows, a more efficient follower 
and self-sacrificing servant of Christ, mv 
Lord, pursuing my pilgrimage among men 



RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


717 


in, if possible, a more resolute, devoted 
and zealous manner of life, cultivating the 
garden of my soul so that the sweet “fruit 
of the spirit” may not be wanting therein. 

I acknowledge to having repented (sor¬ 
rowed for and turned from) all known 
sinful ways, and to having heartily ac¬ 
cepted the divine Father's pardoning 
mercy and love as made known in Christ 
Jesus, the sinner's reconciling Savior and 
Mediator. 

The certificate referred to states that 
the person receiving same is recognized 
as “a sincere-minded member of the above 
association, conjointly with its associated 
membership privilege to participate in all 


the benefits for which the association ex¬ 
ists; as, also to heartily assist in the ad¬ 
vancing of its ennobling principles in the 
midst of men for their earthly and eternal 
good, Dcus cst suinmum bonum (God is 
the supreme good). 

“This associate fellowship will remain 
so long as the holder of the certificate 
manifests by word and act a spirit of piety 
and love toward the possession of those 
principles which are honoring to man as 
also praiseworthy before God.” 

Mr. Lannin says he has made a study of 
spiritualism and has discovered that much 
of the work is “largely a hideous fake.'’ 


SPIRITUALISM RECENTLY ORGANIZED INTO AN 

ECCLESIASTICAL BODY. 


“People now believe in the Bible be¬ 
cause of spiritualism; they do not believe 
in spiritualism because of the Bible. 

“Take up your Bible and you will find 
that there is not a single phenomenon 
which is recorded there which does not 
occur at seances today.” 

These words from the Rev. H. R. 
Haweis in an address before the London 
Spiritualistic Alliance, are prominently set 
forth in the enunciation of the First Spir¬ 
itual Church of Brooklyn. The enuncia¬ 
tion of the church is to be issued for the 
first time today. It corresponds to the 
articles of faith and belief of the Evangeli¬ 
cal Church, in purpose, but in subject 
matter is as different as is an actor’s 
prompt book from a harmony of the four 
gospels. This enunciation is a volumin¬ 
ous work and has been compiled, written 
and planned by Judge A. H. Dailey, one 
of the pillars of the new church, at the 


expense of long study, frequent confer¬ 
ences with the brethren, earnest and 
prayerful thought and at no small amount 
of labor. 

In the opening paragraph the possibility 
of making “changes from time to time, as 
greater wisdom shall advise, in the objects 
and purposes; the principles upon which 
we stand, and the scope of our work” is 
provided for. The first reference to spir¬ 
itualism as it is usually understood is made 
in Articles IV, V, and VI, which are as 
follows; 

“We believe that that which is good and 
true in all religions should be sustained 
by all possible available knowledge, and 
that neither doctrines nor creeds should 
stay legitimate investigation into spiritual 
truths—the manifestation of spiritual 
powers, nor the promulgation of a religion 
incorporating all that is essentially true 
in those respects. 




718 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


“We believe that the time is ripe for the 
incorporation into the doctrines and tenets 
of all truth desiring religious organiza¬ 
tions, an acceptance of the fact of spiritual 
communication between the physical and 
spiritual worlds, and in the absence of 
such acceptance, that wherever practicable, 
religious organizations should be formed 
which shall recoenize such communion. 

“We include in the basis upon which he 
shall build, all essential truth, whether 
incorporated or not in other religions of 
mankind, and declare it to be our purpose 
to ascertain and make known, what is 
true, especially of that which pertains to 
the spiritual nature of man, his psychic 
powers and possibilities, his relations to 
the spiritual world, and to encourage the 
judicious cultivation of spiritual gifts." 

Much stress is laid upon the utterances 
of the great and wise, in ancient and mod¬ 
ern times in this enunciation. Some space 
is devoted to the direct teachings of 
Christ, leading with the beatitudes from 
His sermon on the mount. To the words 
of Paul, the apostle, bearing upon “the 
manifestation of the Spirit,” and to “di¬ 
versities of gifts,” more space is given 
than to the teachings of the Nazarene. 

Many are the extracts from the Acts of 
the Apostles, in which the “spirits," both 
good and bad, are referred to and wherein 
“visions” are described. Following are 
quotations from the Old Testament re¬ 
ferring to the abuse of the psychic power 
among the Israelites. Five hundred and 
ninety-four years before the Christian 
era, Ezekiel, a seer and prophet among 
the Jews, wrote: 

“And the word of the Lord came unto 
me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against 
the prophets of Israel that prophesy and 


say unto them that prophesy out of their 
own hearts, hear ye the word of the Lord. 

“Thus saith the Lord God, unto the 
foolish prophets that follow their own 
spirit, and have seen nothing. O, Israel: 
thy prophets are like the foxes in the des¬ 
ert. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, 
neither made up the hedge for the house 
of Israel to stand in the battle, in the 
day of the Lord. They have seen vanity 
and lying divination, saying ‘The Lord,’ 
and the Lord hath not sent them: and 
they have made others to hope that they 
would confirm the word. 

“Have ye not seen a vain vision, and 
have ye not spoken a lying divination, 
whereas ye say, The Lord saith it: albeit 
I have not spoken ? Therefore, thus saith 
the Lord God, because ye have spoken 
vanity and seen lies, therefore, behold, I 
am against you, saith the Lord God. And 
my hand shall be upon the prophets that 
see vanity, and divine lies: they shall not 
be in the assembly of my people, neither 
shall they be written in the writing of the 
house of Israel: neither shall they enter 
into the land of Israel: and ye shall know 
that I am the Lord God.” 

“Likewise, thou son of man, set thy 
face against the daughters of thy people, 
which prophesy out of their own hearts: 
and prophesy against them, and say, thus 
saith the Lord God: Woe to the women 
that sew pillows to all arm holes and make 
kerchiefs upon the heads of every stature 
to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of 
my people, and will ye save the souls that 
come unto you? And will ye pollute me 
among my people for handfuls of barley, 
for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that 
should not die, and to save the souls alive 
that should not live, by your lying to my 





A Russian Field Railway Crossing an Icebound River. 

In cases like this the sleepers are very long, so that the weight may be well distributed, 















720 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


people, by your lying to my people that 
hear your lies?” 

“Because with lies, ye have made the 
heart of the righteous sad, whom 1 have 
not made sad: and strengthened the hands 
of the wicked that he should not return 
from his wicked way, by promising life: 
therefore, ye shall see no more vanity nor 
divinations: for I will deliver my people 
out of your hands, and ye shall know that 
I am the Lord.” 

“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? 
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: 
if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art 
there. If I take the wings of the morn¬ 
ing and dwell in the uttermost part of the 
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me 
and thy right hand shall hold me.”— 
Ezekiel xiii. 

The Egyptian “Book of the Dead has 
been drawn from for this creed, to show 
the thought of the ancient Egyptians in 
predicting the Christian era thousands 
of years before its dawn. The poetic 
translations from the ancient Hindu 
sacred books have yielded their pages, 
also, to show the conceptions of those peo¬ 
ple on “First Cause.” Then “Haunted 
Houses,” the poem by Henry \\ . Long¬ 
fellow, is used in full, only to be followed 
by this quotation from Gerald Massey: 
“The Spiritualist who has plumbed the 
void of death as I have, and touched this 
solid ground of fact, has established a faith 
that can neither be undermined nor over¬ 
thrown. He has done with the poetry of 
desolation and despair, the sighs of un¬ 
availing regret, and the passionate wailing 
of unfruitful pain. He can not be be¬ 
reaved in soul! ' 

The enunciation declares: 


“The conclusion is being forced upon 
thoughtful and inquiring minds that, as 
the Rev. George H. Hepworth says: 

“ ‘There are more beings who are invis¬ 
ible than there are beings visible, and that 
the visible and the invisible are sup¬ 
plied with means of communicating with 
each other. * * * God has not 
changed His relation to men, and the 
necessities of human nature are just as 
urgent as ever. If angels talked with 
mortals from the time of Adam to the 
days succeeding the crucifixion, it is folly 
to suppose that the curtain dropped and 
we have ever since been left without the 
companionship of a “cloud of witnesses.” 
We must either throw the Bible overboard 
as a tissue of imaginary events, or believe, 
as every generation has believed, that the 
great falsehood of history is that there is 
“a bourne from whence no traveler re¬ 
turns.” * * * It is useless for the 

Christian to declare that such miracles, 
if they are miracles, were confined to the 
limits of a given period. He must accept 
what happens today as well as what hap¬ 
pened centuries ago. If God is really a 
presence in the world, then He must be a 
continuously revealing presence. There 
is a kind of absurdity in the statement that 
He has spoken but refuses to do so any 
more. If He ever spoke, it is certainly 
true that He still speaks. * * * It is 

an inexpressible loss to the religious life 
that we do not realize the radiant fact that 
the solicitations and helpful influences are 
round about us in our struggle with cir¬ 
cumstances. Every loved one who has 
gone is as conscious of our doubts and 
fears as when he was at our side. Neither 
his affection nor his power to aid has been 
abated. In a thousand ways unknown to 



R EC EXT EADS OF THOUGHT 


"'2 1 


us, he gives us strength for the conflict 
and peace of mind in our perplexity. By 
unspoken words he talks with us, and our 
soul and his hold intimate communion. 
W ere that not true, then our lives would 
l)e heavily and darkly overshadowed. But 
it is true, and we are compelled by many 
an unexplained experience to believe it. 
It is a doctrine of Holy Writ: it is veri¬ 
fied by the history of every home: it is a 
component part of practical religion; it is 
a statement of fact which redeems us from 
despair and gives us good cheer, because 
heaven and we are not far apart." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson has also been 
drawn from, as have Henry Ward 
Beecher, Robert Burns, Mozart and 
others. 

Throughout the whole enunciation, 
long quotations have been drawn from 
the work of F. W. H. Myers’ “Human 
Personality and Its Survival of Bodily 
Death.’’ 

Many of the commands given to Old 
Testament characters to obey the instruc¬ 
tions of the “voices within” are cited and 
emphasized, but they are those used by 
E. W. and M. H. Wallis in “Spiritualism 
in the Bible." 

The constitution and by-laws of this 
band of “children of light" show that they 
have profited by the wisdom of “ the chil¬ 
dren of this day and generation" in the 
conduct of business affairs. 

ARTICLE I I. 

Section i. Any person of the age of 
twelve years shall be eligible to member¬ 
ship. Members shall be of two classes, 
namely, co-operative and active members. 
A person can only become an active mem¬ 
ber by being first proposed by an active 


member, or upon personal application. In 
each instance after the organization is 
completed, the application shall be in writ¬ 
ing. stating the full age, name and resi¬ 
dence of the applicant, with references to 
at least two persons willing to certify to 
the integrity, good moral character, tem¬ 
perate habits and peace-loving nature of 
the applicant. The application shall be 
submitted to the board of trustees, and by 
this board referred to the committee on 
membership, who shall investigate and re¬ 
port within two weeks thereafter as to the 
qualifications of the applicant to board of 
trustees, who shall submit the same to the 
pastor for approval. 

ARTICLE X. 

Section i. Every member, whether 
active or co-operative, shall pay such an¬ 
nual membership fee as shall be fixed by 
the board of trustees, quarter yearly in 
advance. 

Section 2. Any member six months in 
arrears for dues shall not be entitled to a 
vote in the annual election of officers, and 
everv member one year in arrears for 
dues mav, at the option of the board of 
trustees, be dropped from the roll of 
members. 

The pledge of membership follows: 

We, whose names are subscribed here¬ 
to, severally state that by so doing we sev¬ 
erally become members of this, the First 
Spiritual Church of Brooklyn, and that 
we will in all things conform our lives, 
to the best of our ability, to the require¬ 
ments of its constitution, laws and ordi¬ 
nances. that we will avoid all causes of 
scandal or reproach, and will sacredly 
o-uard the fair name and fame of this 

o 

church, of its pastors, officers, teachers 





722 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


and members from injustice and wrong 
to the extent of our power to do so; that 
we will be energetic to promote the pros¬ 
perity of the church and the welfare of its 
members, remembering always the great 


truths contained in the enunciation upon 
which this church is founded. 

The Rev. May S. Pepper is the pastor 
of the First Spiritual Church in Brooklyn. 


RELIGIOUS FREAKS IN THE ORIENT. 


The religious sentiment of the orientals 
has found expression in a variety of 
“quaint and curious” and often grotesque 
images and structures designed to promote 
piety among the pagan sects. Some of 
the most notable of these peculiar con¬ 
structions are to be credited to the reli¬ 
gious impulse of the believers in Buddh¬ 
ism. At Rangoon, Burmah, in British 
India, is to be seen the largest figure of 
Buddha ever made. It represents that 
great teacher and leader in a reclining atti¬ 
tude. and it is 200 feet long and fifty feet 
broad between the shoulders. A man 
standing on one of the hands of the figure 
appears in contrast like a pigmy. Near 
Yokohama, Japan, stands a colossal statue 
of Buddha, which is the finest specimen 
of sculpture in bronze to be found in the 
Mikado's empire. 

Some remarkable Buddhist pagodas, or 
shrines of worship, have been erected in 
Burmah. One of these, the Sampan Pa¬ 
goda, is built upon a huge rocking stone 
situated on top of a mountainous rock. 
This place is the resort yearly of 
thousands of pilgrims who are supposed 
to acquire much merit for journeying 
thither from their distant homes. On 
reaching the scene they offer fervent 
prayers, and then, bracing up against the 
big foundation stone of the little edifice, 
strive to rock it to and fro. If the stone 


moves freely it is regarded as a sure sign 
that the supplications of the believers will 
be answered. The Cheyteyo Pagoda is 
another of these extraordinary shrines. 
It is said to rank as the first of Burmah’s 
architectural curiosities. It caps an im¬ 
mense loose bowlder lodged on the very 
edge of the cliff. 4,000 feet above the val¬ 
ley below, and seemingly held there by 
supernatural power. To the eye of the 
observer there is nothing to keep this 
bowlder from slipping off and plunging 
down the precipice four-fifths of a mile, 
with the petty temple and the worshipers 
gathered about it. That no merely natural 
cause prevents such a catastrophe is clear 
to the devotees, for it is believed that relics 
—real hairs—of Buddha are preserved 
under the mighty stone so fearfully poised. 
In front of the pagoda there is a mass of 
hair cut from the heads of pilgrims as a 
sacrificial offering. The faith of those 
who congregate there is so great that after 
due prayers they are ready to face any 
calamity, and death itself, bravely and 
even exultantly. 

The superstition of the Burmans is also 
exhibited in the practice at their festivals 
of carrying about a hideous and gigantic 
effigy of a harper, in order to propitiate 
the evil spirits, which are, it is fancied, 
fond of music. 




Winter as the Russians’ relentless foe in Manchuria. The retreat out of Korea 














724 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


FORTUNE TELLING.—OPINIONS OF A NOTED 

SCIENTIST. 


Of late clays there have been weeping 
and wailing in the camp of the palmists, 
the crystal-gazers, and other varieties of 
modern soothsayers. A recent trial in 
London must have opened the eyes of the 
world to the real nature of the practices 
in which the race of sibyls and professors 
of the occult are accustomed to indulge by 
way of extracting “the ready dollar” from 
the public purse. Personally, I rejoice 
in the exposure, because the whole of the 
sorry evidence given at the trial reveals 
the true nature of so-called occultism and 
places palmistry on its true level as a sys¬ 
tem of absolute quackery. One astonish¬ 
ing feature is that represented by the cre¬ 
dulity which causes otherwise sensible 
people to expect an ordinary mortal, sim¬ 
ilar in constitution to themselves, to be 
able to forecast the future, and also to dis¬ 
play a singular knowledge of the past, of 
people who are perfect strangers to the 
palmist. 

I take no account of certain impression¬ 
able minds which are ready to believe any¬ 
thing. These are the people, who, after 
an interview with a soothsayer, will tell 
you marvelous stories of his or her powers. 
The recital is made up of impressions of 
what the subject thought the palmist said, 
not of what he really declared. Hence 
it is this particular class of subject who is 
responsible for a good deal of the false 
fame which attaches itself to the palmist’s 
declarations. As for the crystal-gazing, 
and the like, when we find the operator 
making false shots by the score, telling 
people who are married that they will meet 
their “fate” in the shape of the right man 


or woman in a few weeks, and otherwise 
talking arrant nonsense, we may well be 
disposed to regard the recent trial as an 
event likely to exert a very beneficent ef¬ 
fect on public opinion. 

I have had personal experiences of 
palmists, led to' such investigations by way 
of ascertaining if their results were in 
accordance with the stories of their suc¬ 
cess. I avow that in no one instance was 
I satisfied at all. There were chance shots 
which went near the mark; all the rest 
was mere vaporing. One lady professor 
said I was “most unsympathetic.” She 
was utterly out of her reckoning on all 
points. I maintained a silence, listening 
to her account of my past, present, and 
future, informing her that I had not come 
to say anything, but to listen to her revela¬ 
tions. When a “patient” begins to talk 
and to answer questions skilfully put, he 
really tells the palmist what he wants to 
know. He reveals his own character, and 
chance does the rest. 

Some of the pretentions of palmists are 
notorious in respect to their audacity. One 
statement was to the effect that the hand 
and its lines are directly modified by the 
action of the brain. We might as legiti¬ 
mately hold that the big toe is so acted 
upon, or that the ear might afford a guide 
to the future of the subject. One might 
be more lenient to the idea that the face 
might prove “a dial of the mind,” be¬ 
cause it is the vehicle whereby the expres¬ 
sions of the emotions are largely dis¬ 
played. We may be prepared to admit 
that the exercise of the facial muscles in 
particular directions might induce a spe- 



RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


725 


cial contour of the face, and thereby stamp 
it with the impress of prevailing mental 
phases. But the case of the hand is alto¬ 
gether without support. The lines on the 
hand indicate the furrows or folds which 
result from muscular action, and that is 
all, just as we see “bracelets” at the wrist 
when we flex our hand on the forearm. 

To assume that in some mysterious 
fashion or other the indications, not of 
character merely, but of a person's past 
and future, are to be determined by a sur¬ 
vey of certain lines on the palm, is to as¬ 
sert a doctrine which is monstrous in re¬ 
spect to its absurdity. Such a statement 
is easily made, but when one calls for 
proof he does not find it in the results of 
the palmist's practice, and certainly no 
explanation is forthcoming from the side 
of physiology. Your Gypsy woman who 
for half a crown will predict your future, 
is quite on a par with the lady who, in a 
dimly lit oriental apartment in London, 
charges her guinea. The whole soothsay¬ 
ing business is a matter of tricks, such 
as can impress the credulous alone. I 
never heard the case against palmistry and 
fortune-telling at large better summed up 
than in the expression of an American 
critic. He declared that if there was any 
truth or reality in the art. the palmist could 
make his fortune on the turf by backing 
winners, that his operations on the stock 
exchange would soon render him inde¬ 


pendent, and that if a life insurance com¬ 
pany could trust to his revelations regard¬ 
ing the duration of life of insurers, he 
would be retained by it at the salary of a 
prime minister. 

1 hat which also surprises me is the 
faith which cultured people occasionally 
are found to place in crystal-gazing. I 
have read of cases in which it was averred 
that a lady looking into a crystal described 
to bystanders scenes she had never wit¬ 
nessed, but with which scenes they were 
themselves familiar. Now, one would 
wish here for much more exact evidence 
than mere hearsay. In a scientific investi¬ 
gation we should have all the evidence 
duly noted, and every possibility of fraud 
or error avoided. There would require to 
be an exact inquiry into all the circum¬ 
stances under which the alleged reproduc¬ 
tions in the crystal, construed by the brain 
of a person unfamiliar with the scenes, 
were carried out. I do not know if in a 
single instance this plan was pursued. 
Why should we not apply the care we ex¬ 
ercise in ordinary matters of life to the 
pretensions of the crystal-gazer? Besides, 
even on scientific grounds we might find in 
certain brain-vagaries materials for ac¬ 
counting for the phenomena on the lines 
of unconscious memory and reproduction 
of impressions. As for the palmists, let 
us devoutly hope we have heard the last 
of them. On this point I have my doubts. 


HAVE WE HAD PRE-EXISTENCE? 

When we look at the differentiations, be produced in the course of a single life, 
which we call the natural characters of One man seems to start with an impotence 
men, we find that they have a very great to resist some particular temptation which 
resemblance to those differentiations exactly resembles the impotence which 
which we learn by direct experience can has been produced in another man by con- 





726 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


tinual yielding to the same temptation. 
One man, again, has through life a calm 
and serene virtue which another gains 
only by years of strenuous effort. Others 
again have instinctive powers of judging 
nice and difficult questions of quality, in 
pictures, for example, or in wine, which 
place them, soon after they have turned 
their attention to the subject, in a posi¬ 
tion to which less fortunate men can at¬ 
tain, if at all, only by the experience of 


years. Here, then, we have characteristics 
which are born with us, which are not ac¬ 
quired in our present lives, and which are 
strikingly like characteristics which, in 
other cases, we know to be due to’ the con¬ 
densed results of experience. Is it not 
probable that the innate characteristics 
are also due to the condensed results of 
experience—in this case, of experience in 
an earlier life ? 


PHENOMENA FROM GHOST-LAND. 


Recent study of ghosts by the Society 
for Psychical Research has led to some 
startling conclusions. The subject, of 
course, is not one in which results ob¬ 
tained from experiments can be accepted 
as exact and beyond possibility of error, 
but out of the best authenticated facts, 
carefully sifted for truth has been drawn 
a new theory, namely, that a spectre, or 
apparition of a human being not in the 
flesh, has only two dimensions, length 
and breadth, with no appreciable thick¬ 
ness. 

It will be shown presently how this 
theory—if it be accepted as correct—ac¬ 
counts satisfactorily for some phantasmal 
phenomena hitherto deemed inexplicable 
—such, for example, as the sudden ap¬ 
pearance or vanishing of a ghost. But, 
first, it is desirable to explain that the 
Society for Psychical Research, which has 
given many years of study to the subject, 
does not entertain any belief in the con¬ 
ventional wraith—the thing of sheeted 
horror which enters at the stroke of mid¬ 
night, smelling of the grave, and drag¬ 
ging a clanking chain through a sliding 
panel just by the blood stain on the floor. 


THEY ARE HARMLESS. 

The real phantom, say the experts, is 
something quite different, wholly harm¬ 
less, and in aspect more like a magic- 
lantern picture than anything else to 
which it can be readily compared. The 
conventional ghost is essentially super¬ 
natural ; the real ghost is a natural phe¬ 
nomenon which as yet is not understood. 
Most stories of phantoms are pure non¬ 
sense, built out of the imagination; but 
here and there has been found one that 
bore investigation, and which has been 
supported by such evidence as to satisfy 
the society of its accuracy. Enough au¬ 
thentic apparitions have been sifted out, 
in short, to come mighty near to proving 
that ghosts do exist. If so much be ad¬ 
mitted, it remains to be determined what 
sort of stuff, if any, they are made of. 

We are so accustomed to living in a 
world of three dimensions, where all 
things possess substance, whether solid, 
liquid or gaseous, that it is hardly possi¬ 
ble to conceive of anything having exist¬ 
ence with only length and breadth and 
without thickness. Yet it is now asserted 
that true ghosts exactly correspond to this 





An Impressive Contrast: Arrival of a train at Mukden with new troops from Moscow and of another from the battlefield with the wounded. 















728 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


description. They are the mysterious 
inhabitants of a region, which, for want 
of a better name, may be called “flat 
land”—a country in which the people 
resemble shadows thrown upon the wall, 
inasmuch as they have no solidity, and 
are invisible when turned edgewise to¬ 
ward the observer. 

TOO THIN TO BE SEEN. 

This, according to the new theory, is 
exactly why phantoms have such a way 
of appearing and disappearing suddenly. 
When the light does not happen to be 
reflected directly from the plane surface 
of a spectre, to the eye of the observer the 
ghost is necessarily invisible. It needs 
only to turn itself at a slight angle and 
instantly it seems to vanish, though from 
another point of view it might still be 
obvious and palpable. 

There are now, approximately, a bil¬ 
lion and a half of human beings alive in 
the world. Fully one hundred billions 
have lived and died. Hence it is no mere 
figure of speech when we say that a per¬ 
son newly defunct has “gone to join the 
majority.” It is indeed a majority so 
great that those who now survive are 
relatively an insignificant few. The 
spiritists believe that all of the hundred 
billions “gone before" are still repre¬ 
sented on the earth by ghosts. It is an 
idea stimulating to the imagination, and, 
if correct, must signify that ours is in 
very truth a spiritual realm, in which 
creatures of flesh and blood are, com¬ 
paratively speaking, of small importance 
numerically. 

Supposing such to be the case, the 
world must be swarming with spectres, 
and we are obliged to imagine a viewless 


% 

air as literally thronged with phantasmal 
shapes, preserving the likeness of what 
they once were in the flesh, but without 
substance, and even transparent to the 
eye, when beheld under suitable con¬ 
ditions. The marvel is not that they 
should occasionally present themselves to 
living beings as apparitions, but that they 
should be seen so seldom. Perhaps, how¬ 
ever, they are controlled by circumstances 
which by us are unknowable. 

SOME SPECULATIONS. 

Shall you ever be a ghost? And if 
so, are you likely to find such a situation 
agreeable? One would suppose not, but 
it is impossible to tell. It may be that 
phantoms enjoy a kind of happiness of 
their own, though witnesses have usually 
described their aspect as melancholy, and, 
having no bodies, they are necessarily free 
from the varied physical ills to which hu¬ 
man flesh is heir. They cannot suffer 
from heat or cold, and it is reasonable 
to imagine that they are not subject to the 
law of gravitation. Transportation to 
any distance should be to them a matter 
of an instant. 

Speculations in regard to existence be¬ 
yond the grave possess an absorbing and 
never-failing human interest. We must 
get there some time, if we survive the 
tomb, and we are naturally anxious to ob¬ 
tain an inkling as to what is going to be¬ 
come of us. If it be true, as above sug¬ 
gested, that the ghosts of the dead possess 
no substance whatever, but merely length 
and breadth, we need not dread crowding 
in the hereafter, inasmuch as 20,000 
spectres would occupy no more room, in 
effect, than a dozen. They could be as- 





RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


72 !) 


sembled in a pack and shuffled like the 
thinnest of playing cards. 

It is not astonishing, when the demand 
for knowledge on this subject is con¬ 
sidered, that many persons should make 
a good living by conjuring up spooks for 
the entertainment of the credulous. For 
the moderate charge of $i or $2, paid to 
a “medium," anybody may see one ghost 
or several. Or—and this is the latest im¬ 
provement—one may develop actual pho¬ 
tographs of phantoms in one’s own dark 
room. The special dry plates, bought 
from a medium, are guaranteed to “fetch” 
the spectre, which, in this shape, are to 
be regarded as the most reliable of all 
supernatural phenomena. 

“GHOST PLATES” IN DEMAND. 

“Ghost plates” are manufactured on a 
large scale in Boston, whence they are 
shipped all over the country. Many 
mediums, however, prefer to make their 
own. They cost $10 to $15 a dozen, and 
may be used like any other dry plates. If 
you take photographs of people on them 
you will find that phantasmal heads 
and various other strange things appear 
in the developed negatives. They are 
most remarkable, and it is not surprising 
that, even at so high a price, there should 


be a steady demand for them from Maine 
to California, and from Chicago to 
Florida. 

As a matter of fact, the plates, before 
being sold, are “exposed" ones. That is 
to say, pictures are taken with them— 
usually of historical portraits or classical 
heads, which have been cut out of the 
paper on which they are printed and at¬ 
tached to a black cloth. Under-exposures 
are purposely made, so that, when 
ordinary photographs are taken on the 
plates, and the latter are developed, the 
“phantoms" come out faint and ghost¬ 
like. 

The human intelligence has greatly ex¬ 
panded during the last few centuries, and 
education has done wonders for the mind, 
but people today are just as fond of 
being humbugged as they were 3,000 or 
5,000 years ago. Where things super¬ 
natural are concerned they are so eager 
to be deceived that the “mediums” do not 
have to go after gudgeons, but are actual¬ 
ly pursued by them. Meanwhile, the real 
ghost, which cannot be persuaded to ap¬ 
pear to order, is without an advertising 
agent, and up to now has eluded proper 
investigation. Perhaps it will be better 
understood at a future day. 


THE FAKES AND FAKERS OF SPIRITUALISM. 


Dr. Isaac K. Funk, whose disclosures 
regarding Spiritualism have created in¬ 
tense interest, is one of the most learned 
men in the country. Besides being a 
prominent Prohibitionist, he is editor of 
the Standard Dictionary and head of the 
big New York publishing house of Funk 
& Wagnalls. 


The first intimation that he believed in 
Spiritualism reached the public through 
a story relating his experience at a se¬ 
ance in Brooklyn in February, 1903. 

It was at one of these “sittings” that 
Dr. Funk says he communicated with 
what he supposed was the spirit of Henry 
Ward Beecher. The remarkable story of 








730 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


‘‘The Widow's Mite” was the result of 
the communication. 

Now Dr. Funk has created more sur¬ 
prise by exposing the workings of al¬ 
leged spiritualists. But at the time he 
set out to discover all that was.behind 
the phenomena, he took more than pass¬ 
ing interest in the subject. 

So it would appear from this state¬ 
ment that Dr. Funk has been interested 
in the subject of Spiritualism for a num¬ 
ber of years. 

A QUEER CASE. 

i 

It was in February of 1903 that his be¬ 
lief in the phenomena took a definite form. 
In that month he heard of a woman in 
Brooklyn who gave Spiritualistic “sit¬ 
tings'’ at her home every Wednesday 
night. Knowing that it was strictly a 
family affair, Dr. Funk figured that if he 
could get permission to attend one of 
these seances it would afford him a splen¬ 
did opportunity to investigate. 

At 11 o'clock on one of those nights 
the control named Geiige asked: 

“Has any one here got anything that 
belonged to Mr. Beecher?" 

Dr. Funk spoke up, saying he had a 
letter from Dr. Hillis, Mr. Beecher’s suc¬ 
cessor. 

“I am told by a spirit present that Mr. 
Beecher, who is not present, is concerned 
about a coin, ‘the widow’s mite.’ This 
coin is out of its place and should be re¬ 
turned,” continued the control. “Mr. 
Beecher looks to you, doctor, to return 
it.” 

Dr. Funk thought for a few seconds. 
Finally he remembered that when he was 
making the Standard Dictionary nine 
years before he had borrowed an old 


coin, called “the widow’s mite,” from a 
man in Brooklyn. The gentleman was 
a close friend of Mr. Beecher, 

Dr. Funk was further informed by the 
control that the coin in question was in 
a vault under a lot of papers. He had 
always supposed that it had been returned. 
Later on he made inquiries at the office 
concerning it. Everybody who had 
knowledge of the coin reported that it 
had been returned. But Dr. Funk be¬ 
lieved that what the spirit of Henry Ward 
Beecher told him was true. The story of 
how the piece of money was finally lo¬ 
cated under a pile of paper in the safe of 
the publishing office has been often re¬ 
peated. It was then that Dr. Funk’s 
faith in Spiritualism broadened. He 
continued his research until he recently 
made the startling discovery that para¬ 
phernalia with which “sittings” are con¬ 
ducted can be purchased very reasonably 
in Chicago. 

AN INVESTIGATION. 

A noted writer determined to make a 
thorough investigation of this market of 
Spiritualistic fakes. The experience that 
ensued is related as follows: 

“When I entered the Spiritualistic 
workshop with the intention of learning 
the entire truth about Spiritualism, I, in 
common with most of the rest of the 
world, had a lurking belief that there 
might be something in Spiritualism; that 
there might, perhaps, exist in some one 
the power to materialize a spirit into 
flesh. 

“When I left the shop I had had 
stripped from me every atom of belief. I 
had seen one brand of Spiritualism ex¬ 
posed as one of the greatest frauds of the 




A Japanese Patrolling Party “spying out the land” in advance of their troops. Their success 
is largely to be attributed to their cautiousness and preparation. 




















732 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


century. I had ringing in my ears the 
cynical words of the clever little manu¬ 
facturer of materialized spirits: 

“ ‘By the way, when you go out as a 
medium, if you ever see any real spirits 
materialize, just come and tell me about 
it, will you?’ 

DOORS SHUT, WINDOWS DARK. 

“ ‘Remember that I am not a medium,' 
Mr. Meyers said, as he locked the door 
and saw that the windows were all care¬ 
fully shrouded from chance curious eyes 
outside. 

“This is his custom always. Prospective 
customers must make a $10 deposit be¬ 
fore they witness any materializations, 
and they are admitted to the shop singly 
or in couples only, and the door is al¬ 
ways locked behind them. 

VIEWS A SEANCE. 

“ ‘I cannot give you as realistic a se¬ 
ance here as a medium could in a room 
properly fitted up for the work. The 
walls of a room in which a seance is given 
should be lined with dead black, and for 
the so-called “light” seances the lights 
should he as carefully adjusted as those 
of a theatre.” 

“Then he extinguished the light and 
withdrew into a little room, before the 
door of which there hung a curtain. In 
a moment his voice was heard from be¬ 
hind the drapery. 

“ ‘There, there,’ it said, soothingly, 
softly, as one would speak to a child, ‘go 
on out of the cabinet. Don’t be afraid. 
Go and speak to the lady.’ 

“Then there appeared on the floor, di¬ 
rectly in front of me, a small spot of 
phosphorescent light that wavered and 


grew larger and rose higher in the air 
with every second. Then my eves dis¬ 
tinguished floating draperies, and next the 
slender, drooping figure and the calm, 
sweet face of a young girl. 

“The girl advanced slowly toward me. 
Even though I knew I was witnessing 
but the clever trick of a clever charlatan, 
I felt my blood grow cold as the figure 
advanced slowly toward me and laid a 
clammy, cold hand on my forehead. 

LIGHT PIERCES DISGUISE. 

“But just then the light from a passing 
street car pierced even the thick curtains 
of the window, and I saw beneath the 
gauzy robes the very prosaic business 
suit of Mr. Meyers and heard his laugh 
of amusement as he backed slowly away 
and then sank in a swirl of sauze to the 
floor and disappeared. 

“It was funny, I give you my word— 
that patent exposure of the Spiritualistic 
mediums in the trick with which they 
have fooled thousands—even though the 
shock was a hit startling after the eeri¬ 
ness of the ‘ghost’ scene. 

“ ‘Do you see how it is done?’ he said 
from the cabinet. 

“ ‘The" most of it,’ I returned. ‘I do 
not see, however, just how you keep from 
being seen while coming from the door 
of the cabinet to the centre of the room.’ 

“ ‘That’s simply my coat,’ he returned, 
with a laugh. ‘I gather all this drapery 
up about me with one hand and hold my 
coat (the mediums use black cloth) over 
my face and the upper part of my body. 
You cannot see black against black, and 
when I reach the centre of the room I 
simply simultaneously drop the coat and 
let fall the draperies.’ 





733 


RECENT EADS OF THOUGHT 


TRICK OF ARMS AND LEGS. 

“ ‘But the figure appeared so small at 
first,’ I said. 

“ ‘That is only a trick of kneeling and 
posturing,’ he replied. ‘When I let the 
coat fall I am prostrate on the floor with 
only my uplifted and masked face show¬ 
ing. Then I slowly rise to my knees, 
and then to my feet. The gliding motion 
is a trick of arms and legs that every 
actor knows.’ 

“ ‘Was it your hand that touched my 
forehead?’ I queried, determined to 
know the whole of the ghostly business. 

“ ‘No,’ he said; ‘it was a hand cover¬ 
ing mine—a hand made of rubber, the 
same material of which the mask is com¬ 
posed.’ 

“Then, with a quick transition back to 
the faker, he spoke softly again to some¬ 
thing invisible. 

“ ‘What’s the matter, Fritzie?’ he said. 

“Scratch ! scratch ! tap ! tap! came a 
sound, as of little fingers groping with 
the door catch. 

“ ‘What’s the matter, Fritzie?’ repeated 
the soft, soothing voice. 

“ ‘Fritzie wants to get out. Fritzie 
wants to see mamma,’ piped a childish 
treble that would tear into quivering 
shreds the heart-strings of a mother be¬ 
reaved and ready to believe anything that 
would bring back to her even for an in¬ 
stant any semblance of her lost darling. 

LITTLE CHILD APPEARS. 

“Then, floating in the air above our 
heads, 1 saw a little childish face, so life¬ 
like, so full of the unearthly beauty that 
one associates with the babies we have 
sent on before, that in a flash I compre¬ 
hended how lonely, broken-hearted moth¬ 


ers spend fortunes upon the tricksters 
who in this manner prey upon their cre¬ 
dulity. 

“It was still the mask, with the man’s 
figure hidden in the concealing black. 

“ ‘That head is fastened to a slender rod 
that bends and waves or sweeps in cir¬ 
cles as my arm directs,’ the pseudo-medi¬ 
um explained. 

“ ‘But I didn’t see even your hand,’ I 
objected, ‘or your face, either.’ 

“ ‘Of course not,' he returned. ‘I had 
on a black mask and black gloves.’ 

“Many other figures came from behind 
the curtain, while the wonderful voice of 
the ventriloquist who manipulated them 
questioned them in tones of a master and 
answered in every conceivable intonation, 
from the deep, grave basso of the hus¬ 
band and father to the tiny pipe of the 
child. 

“Stately Catholic priests with crucifixes 
uplifted and rosaries dangling from 
clammy fingers blessed me so realistically 
that I almost sank to my knees in rev¬ 
erence; sweet-faced sisters of charity 
glided past me and whispered soft words 
in my ears; grim, forbidding Indian 
chiefs, graceful Indian maidens, stately 
kings and queens in glittering crowns 
and gorgeous robes of state; tottering, 
aged men and women. 

PRICES FOR VARIOUS OUTFITS. 

“The whole procession swept along be¬ 
fore me, underneath each one of them 
the dapper, sauve little man whose deft 
fingers make it possible for hundreds of 
mediums to coin fortunes from the heart- 
throbs of the credulous. 

“The charlatan turned up the lights. 






734 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


picked up his coat from the floor and be¬ 
came again the shrewd business man. 

“ ‘I can fit you out as a medium for 
$100/ lie said, ‘if you do not take the 
elaborate mechanical figures.’ 

“‘What about tbe slate writing?' I 
queried. ‘Is it a mechanical trick?’ 

SLATE TRICK THE SIMPLEST. 

“ ‘Slate writing is simply cussed brass,’ 
frankly returned Mr. Meyers. ‘For $5 
I can fit you out with slates that you can 
glue together with the pencil inside, hang 
upon the chandelier in full view of the 
audience, and in a few moments take 
them down with a message written in¬ 
side. There are different kinds of slates, 
each with a different trick. I only teach 
a trick after I have sold and delivered 
that particular slate. It is the simplest 
of all tricks, however. 

“ ‘Many of my patrons make more than 
$100 on a Sunday seance. They never 
recommend me to any one, however, as 
they are a jealous set and try to keep the 
field to themselves. A real medium never 
admits that there is nothing in Spiritual¬ 
ism. Even to me she carries out the pre¬ 
tense by saying that she has lost her 
“power” and has to substitute bogus 
goods for the real, materialized spirits. 

“ ‘Some of the most prominent me¬ 
diums have amassed fortunes. I rarely 
know their real names and addresses, as 
most of them purchase through agents.’ 

“ ‘And this is spiritualism,’ I said, half 
to myself, as I rose to go. 

“ ‘Yes,’ said the clever little medium 
maker, ‘this is spiritualism—all there is 
of it.’ 


EASY GRAFT OF THE MEDIUMS. 

“Most people suppose that mediums all 
profess to summon up real ghosts—that, 
in the language of the profession, they 
materialize. That isn’t true. To one 
materializing medium in these days there 
are a hundred test mediums. 

“The test medium holds forth usually 
in a cheap hall. The admission is low, 
for her patrons are poor. Usually it runs 
from 10 to 25 cents. 

“She starts off with a hymn. Then she 
borrows an article from each person in 
the congregation and begins ber tests. 

“For example, she’ll hold up a glove 
and ask who owns it. When the owner 
has spoken up she'll hold the glove to her 
forehead and say something like this: 

‘I hear the name John. Have you a 
John in the spirit world?’ 

“If the owner of the glove has a John 
among the departed the medium sends 
some beautiful communications and then 
tries to draw the victim out. With a 
cleverness born of experience, she pieces 
together his occupation, his troubles 
and his wants, and tells him all about 
them. 

“He's paralyzed with astonishment, and 
so are the rest of the circle—for the peo¬ 
ple who go to seances aren’t critical, and 
they go with a great desire to believe. 

TEST MEDIUMS TESTED. 

“One of the hardest things for a test 
medium to do is to call at once the name 
of the dear departed in the spirit realm. 
If she starts off with John, and runs 
through Mary and Katherine and Lily 
and none of them hit the mark, then the 
most credulous seeker after spirits is in- 







Human ladder of Japanese escalading a fort at Port Arthur. 

























730 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


dined to pronounce her a fake. On the 
other hand, if she hits at once the name 
of the very spirit which the seeker most 
desires, she's pronounced a great success. 

“Their best means of getting at names 
is a sort of Mediums’ Union, an unorgan¬ 
ized society for mutual help which exists 
in every medium ridden town. 

“Mme. Fake, the medium, has a new 
visitor, a fat woman in black, we'll say, 
who wears her front hair in gray frizzes 
and has a slight limp. Mme. Fake tries 
out a half a dozen names on her. Perhaps 
she gets down to the sixth before she finds 
that Robert fits some dead relative of the 
old lady in black. 

“Before Mrs. Fake gets through, she's 
learned further that the old lady has a 
dead sister named Annie. The old lady, 
remembering how long Mme. Fake has 
been in getting those names, goes away 
declaring that she's no good. 

“Mrs. Fake knows all that, and knows 
that the old lady won't come to her again, 
but that she'll surely go to another 
medium—for when a person is bitten by 
the spiritualistic bug he usually keeps go¬ 
ing to mediums until he gets satisfaction. 

“So Mrs. Fake notifies every medium 
in her crowd, giving a close description 
of the old lady, together with the names 
of her spirit friends and any other accu¬ 
rate information which she has been able 
to drag out. Next Sunday night, when 
an old lady in black, with frizzes and a 
limp shows up at the Home of Truth 
Circle, conducted by Mrs. Soakem, the 
second sight wonder, the old lady is told 
right off the bat that Robert wants her 
and a beautiful spirit named Anne is over 
her shoulder calling her sister. 


REMARKABLE PROOF. 

“She goes away firmly convinced that 
Mrs. Soakem is a wonder and that immor¬ 
tality is proved. In a western city I’ve 
seen printed blanks used to distribute 
such information among mediums. 

“That isn't their only method of getting 
names, though. Some of them are very 
clever lip-readers. When in doubt they 
play ‘William’ or ‘John,’ those being the 
most common Anglo-Saxon names. 

“Then they make it a point to learn the 
names of people living in the neighbor¬ 
hood and to watch the obituary notices, 
knowing that half their victims are driven 
to them by the ache of some recent be¬ 
reavement. 

“That’s the nasty part of the whole 
business. The laboring men’s wives and 
daughters, the hired girls and stable boys, 
who haunt cheap seances, come because 
they’re in trouble and want some help 
and consolation. These people put their 
hearts on their sleeves and tell about 
their love affairs and family difficulties 
in a way that makes you gasp. I blush 
sometimes to listen to them. 

“The cheap test seance isn't the place 
where the mediums make their money, 
though. It is really only an advertisement 
to get custom for the ‘private’ and de¬ 
veloping seances. All .the time she is 
sending communications to her audiences, 
she is sizing them up. If one looks more 
easy or eager than the rest, she says some¬ 
thing like this: 

“ ‘John tells me that the spirits have 
much to tell you. but you’re holding back. 
You need to draw closer to ’em.’ 

That suggestion is thrown out once or 
twice. About the third time this particu¬ 
lar victim visits the seance the spirits say: 






RECENT EADS OF THOUGHT 


‘We have something to tell you that 
can’t be told in public. You must see a 
medium alone.’ 

“If the victim is a woman—and she 
usually is—curiosity brings her around the 
very next day. The private sittings cost 
from 50 cents an hour up, according to 
the means and credulity of the victims. 
The medium loses no chance of leading 
her on to come again. 

PSYCHICS. 

“Developing sittings are a beautiful 
graft. The medium uses this dodge on 
people who have what they call the psychic 
temperament—they can pick them a mile 
away. 

“These people are usually hankering to 
be mediums and to talk to the spirits them¬ 
selves. The medium leads them on, says 
that they have psychic powers and the 
spirits want to come into close commun ¬ 
ion with them. It all leads up to the 
private developing seance, which costs all 
the victims can pay and lasts as long as 
they’ll stand for it. 

“This is their common or garden 
variety of graft. But they work all kinds 
of variations. There’s a medium in 
Boston who has cleaned up a pile by ‘dis¬ 
covering’ lost treasures. Locating mines 
is a favorite variety in the far west. 

“There is a medium in San Francisco, 
Mme. Smith we’ll call her, who's a won¬ 
der in her way. The Pacific Mail liner 
Rio de Janeiro was sunk in the Golden 
Gate on Washington's birthday, 1901, 
with $60,000 in gold aboard. No one 
could find the hull. 

“After the steamship and wrecking 
companies had tried and failed, Mme. 
Smith had a revelation from the captain 


i O i 


of the Rio, which showed her the exact 
spot where the hull lay in shallow water. 
Mme. Smith had this revelation one 
evening in a full circle. She said that it 
wouldn't do for her to take all that 
money ; she’d lose her power if she did. 
But she was going to let in all her dear 
friends and believers—for a considera¬ 
tion. 

“According to a faker who stood in 
with her then, but fell out with her later, 
she sold $25,000 worth of stock in her 
wrecking company. They made a few 
bluffs at diving and then announced that 
Mme. Smith had been guided wrong by 
an evil spirit, and that the expenses of 
diving had eaten up the capital. 

“But Mme. Smith would make it all 
right. She’d give, in return for wrecking 
company stock, shares in an oil company 
which was to make a fortune from wells 
discovered by her psychic powers. They 
took it like lambs, and she’s doing business 
at the same old stand. 

“Materializing or bringing ghosts out 
of the vasty deep doesn't pay so well. It 
is a kind of public show, with very little 
side graft. Therefore it is less common, 
and admission is higher, usually a dollar 
a head. 

“I’ve seen dozens of developing 
seances, and in every case the method was 
the same. The cabinet is hung with black 
and covered in front with a black curtain. 
The surrounding wall is also draped in 
black. 

“Often the cabinet is the bow window 
of a house or hall. The audience is asked 
to inspect the walls and curtains. They 
may inspect all they like. The trick 
isn’t there. 

“There is a dim, shaded point of light 




738 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


in the back of the room, practically no 
light at all. When all is ready the me¬ 
dium takes a seat near the curtain and 
calls for a hymn. 

HOW IT IS DONE. 

“While it is being sung his assistant— 
usually a woman—steals into the room by 
a side door near the cabinet. She’s dressed 
in a dead black robe, and against the 
black background of the walls and cabinet 
she can't be seen at all in that light, no 
matter how much she moves. She wears 
rubber-soled shoes and the hymn helps 
her to enter without being heard. 

“Under the black robe she is dressed in 
ghostly white, and often she wears a 
mask lightly coated with phosphorescent 
paint to make a shining spirit face. 

“When the signal is given to appear 


she opens the black robe in front, and 
when she disappears she simply closes it 
again. By closing it a certain way she 
produces the effect of disappearing 
through the floor. There are often two 
or three assistants, one a child or a small 
woman. 

“The developing medium, like the test 
medium, keeps tabs on the departed dear 
ones of his regular customers, and trots 
them out for their benefit. It makes you 
ashamed of humanity to see the way these 
fakers draw hack bereaved mothers who 
live from week to week just to talk to 
their dead children. 

“There are many other methods of ma¬ 
terializing, but this one is the cheapest 
and most satisfactory, and has supplanted 
all the others.” 


LUMINOUS SLEEP. 


A little pamphlet has lately been pub¬ 
lished by a native of Ceylon, entitled “Lu¬ 
minous Sleep,” by P. Arunachalam, M. A. 
The writer treats of sleep entirely from 
the psychological, and not at all from 
the physical point of view. There are, 
he maintains, three kinds of sleep, the 
third of which is little known in Europe. 
First, there is dreaming sleep, “when the 
curtain falls on this act to rise on an¬ 
other far more interesting, an inner world 
full of intense life and emotion.” Sec¬ 
ondly, he speaks of a strange, unexplored 
land, the region of deep sleep. “In this 
sleep we are unconscious of our exist¬ 
ence, but on waking we are sure that we 
have been in a blissful haven of rest, and 
we say, T have slept well.’ ” But he main¬ 
tains there is yet another sleep, a “sleep 
of light,” in which, while there is absence 


of thought, while there is rest and bliss, 
there is not darkness and oblivion, but 
perfect consciousness. 

TENNYSON AS AN EXAMPLE. 

In the east, Mr. Arunachalam tells us, 
there are men who know how to “lift the 
veil of sleep” and who refresh their spirits 
in this “sleep of light” in a manner other¬ 
wise impossible, and appear to obtain from 
it some conviction of immortality. This 
occult power is, he asserts, not unknown 
in the west; but it is not, he laments, 
widely cultivated. In illustration of his 
meaning he quotes a passage from the 
“Life of Tennyson,” which we give in 
full: “I have never had any revelation 
through anesthetics, but a kind of waking 
trance (this for lack of a better name) I 
have frequently had quite up from boy- 




























BOOK OF THE TIMES 


740 


hood, when I have been all alone. This 
had often come upon me through repeat¬ 
ing my own name to myself silently till 
all at once, as it were out of intensity of 
the consciousness of individuality, the in¬ 
dividuality itself seemed to dissolve and 
fade into boundless being; and this not a 
confused state, hut the clearest of the 
clearest, the surest of the surest; utterly 
beyond words, where death was an almost 
laughable impossibility, the loss of per¬ 
sonality (if so it were) seeming no ex¬ 
tinction, but the only true life. I am 
ashamed of my feeble description. Have 
I not said that the state is utterly beyond 
words?” “If the science of the spirit,” 
comments the writer of the pamphlet, 
“were cultivated in Europe as it is in In¬ 
dia, and if practical instruction and guid¬ 
ance had been available to Tennyson, 
what heights might not so ripe a soul 
have scaled, what blessed vistas might he 
not have opened up to the west!” 


CAN WE LEARN DURING SLEEP? 

There is a certain fascination about this 
suggestion. Might we really learn some¬ 
thing during sleep if we tried? If sleep 
were a new phenomenon, if hitherto man 
had lived his life without intermission of 
consciousness, and if suddenly he dis¬ 
covered in some corner of the globe a race 
who passed a third of their time in ap¬ 
parently unconscious repose, yet declared 
that during these periods of unconscious¬ 
ness they passed through scenes and ex¬ 
perienced adventures like, yet unlike, 
those of waking life, we should, if we 
could bring ourselves to believe them, 
imagine ourselves in a fair way to dis¬ 
cover the secret of death. The personal¬ 
ity of the healthy dreamer is free of the 
body; in dreams he goes away from the 
place where it lies. His soul is not any 
more in his bed than the soul of a dead 
man is in the churchyard. 


REVIVAL OF BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT. 


It is a startling reminder of our near¬ 
ness to the past to read in the newspapers 
that a college professor is seriously argu¬ 
ing that witchcraft is not an exploded 
myth, but an alarmingly increasing 
reality. 

Professor Herbert L. Stetson of Kala¬ 
mazoo College says that “many persons 
are ruled by personalities other than their 
own,” and that “it is impossible for these 
victims to disenthrall themselves. They 
grow away from their own selves by 
sheer force of sinister and occult influ¬ 
ences over which they have no control. 
This kind of witchcraft has reached dan¬ 
gerous proportions, and it is one of the 


most important problems with which sci¬ 
ence has to deal today. These ‘posses¬ 
sions' of demons will never cease until 
mankind comes to perfect conditions.” 

As Lecky, in his “History of European 
Morals,” says: 

“The reality of witch miracles was es¬ 
tablished by a critical tribunal, which, 
however imperfect, was at least the most 
searching then existing in the world, by 
the judicial decisions of the law courts 
of every European country, supported by 
the unanimous voice of public opinion, 
and corroborated by the investigation of 
some of the ablest men during several cen¬ 
turies.” 





RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


741 


In spite of judicial decisions, popular 
belief and expert opinion, faith in witch¬ 
craft became absurd through the mere 
growth of intelligence. Nobody “cru¬ 
saded” against the superstition; it sim¬ 
ply died out because it was repugnant to 
common sense and scientific reasoning. 

Once in a while an echo of the terror 
of the past sets the world to smiling, but 
ordinarily it is some poor, ignorant, back- 
woods old woman who raises the grisly 
spectre of sorcery. 

Witchcraft would have no chance in 
the world nowadays. It would hardly 


have time to manifest itself before the 
bacillus of possession was isolated, and 
not only would there be an anti-witch 
serum for sale in the drug stores, but the 
sources of contagion would be attacked 
with germicides and disinfectants. A 
world that has conquered cholera and 
yellow fever and smallpox would make 
short work of sorcery. 

The possession that is the problem 
nowadays is not the possession of men’s 
bodies by infernal spirits, but the posses¬ 
sion of the sources of supply of the things 
men need. 


A PECULIAR RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. 


Tl^e Koreshan Unity, a queer religious 
sect, who believe that the earth is a hol¬ 
low globe, that we reside in it, and that 
the sky in some way is the shell of the 
globe, are taking steps to incorporate the 
new city of Jerusalem, which is to be lo¬ 
cated on the banks of the beautiful Es- 
tero bay, in Lee county, Florida, which 
they say will soon be famed as the waters 
upon which, when the work is completed, 
will arise one of the greatest cities of the 
continent. 

The Koreshan Unity has posted legal 
notices in the Estero post-office that a 
meeting of the citizens will be held for 
the purpose of arranging to incorporate a 
city to contain twelve miles square terri¬ 
tory, and erect buildings, etc. 

ROOM FOR 10,000,000 PERSONS. 

To give ample room for the 10,000,000 
of population which they hope to gather 
there in time, 4,000 acres of land in Lee 
county have been taken in, running down 
to Estero bay and back into the wild lands 

for miles. 


It is understood that the Koreshan 
Unity will purchase all the lands of the 
United Land Company embraced in the 
proposed corporate limits. 

The New Jerusalem is to be laid out, 
on paper at least, on a scale which will 
dwarf into insignificance all plans of 
present large cities. 

There will be great temples, from 
which broad avenues will radiate in every 
direction, and the picturesque Estero bay 
and river will play an important part in 
the future of the new city. 

The owners of the groves of grapefruit 
and oranges that are now planted on Es¬ 
tero creek will find at their own doors a 
market to utilize the crops grown, and 
eventually New Jerusalem is to become 
the leading seaport of the world. 

HIGH PRIEST OF ORDER. 

Dr. Teed, the high priest of the Kore¬ 
shan Unity at Estero, was in Jacksonville 
recently on business connected with in¬ 
corporating the new city. In addition 








742 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Dr. Teed has just purchased the fine tour¬ 
ist hotel on St. James' island, in Charlotte 
harbor, and his plan is to make this a 
huge Chautauqua university, with hotel 
accommodation at popular prices for 
thousands of guests. Each season he 
will present new Chautauqua features. 

At Estero there is already a large ship¬ 
building plant, which is very prosperous, 

GODS AND DEVILS 

One has only to reflect that the false 
gods of Hindustan number upward of 
two hundred millions in order to realize 
the stupendous difficulty in the way of 
Christian missionaries in India. Workers 
in the foreign mission field have to con¬ 
tend first with regularly organized re¬ 
ligions, such as Mohammedanism, Bud¬ 
dhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confucian¬ 
ism, Brahminism, and so on. Then come 
sheer paganism, devil worship and all 
kinds of base and dreadful orgies char¬ 
acteristic of the darkest parts of the earth, 
ranging from the mysterious snake wor¬ 
ship of Hayti and the interior of Santo 
Domingo away to the dreadful “sanctu¬ 
aries” of the Bight of Benin, in Africa, 
which were slippery with human blood 
and paved with the skulls of human vic¬ 
tims offered up in propitiation to evil 
spirits. 

As is well known, the cow is the most 
sacred animal of the Hindus, but that 
does not prevent even the holy city of 
Benares having a temple dedicated to 
sacred monkeys or the worship of the 
elephant-headed Ganesha as a god. 

At “melas,” or fairs, in India fakers 
or holy men may be seen such as make 
the missionary’s heart ache that such ob- 


a factory for the manufacture of shawls, 
and other manufacturing concerns which 
employ a great number of men. 

The new colony is run on the co-opera¬ 
tive plan. Each member is given a cer¬ 
tain piece of work to do, and he is paid 
out of the treasury of the colony. No 
member is to own more than the other. 


OF MANY LANDS. 

vious sincerity and terrible voluntary suf¬ 
fering should be so misplaced. Perhaps 
underneath a banyan tree one wretched 
man has dug a hole in the ground and 
buried his head and throat to the shoul¬ 
ders, his legs sticking up in the air like 
some new and remarkable branching tree. 

STRANGE PRACTICES. 

The missionary in savage lands has all 
kinds of ancient superstitions and strange 
practices to contend with—practices im¬ 
plicitly believed in by the people through 
generations and centuries and even thou¬ 
sands of years. These may range from 
the totem poles of Alaska to the painted 
eyes of a Chinese junk, which eyes are 
supposed to enable the vessel to find its 
way in the dark and avoid shoals and 
rocks! 

By the way, it is not generally known 
that above one of the main gates at Pekin 
city, the metropolis of the Chinese Em¬ 
pire, there are fearsome cannons painted 
upon canvas to frighten away possible 
rioters as well as evil-disposed people who 
might attempt to loot the city. 

The great Indian “melas.” or fairs, 
mentioned elsewhere, are a terrible hind¬ 
rance to the godly work, as such immense 






RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


743 


gatherings of fanatics seem to stir one 
another up to resistance, and even to a 
dangerous pitch of enthusiasm—as in the 
Juggernaut festivals of South India and 


to one million pilgrims bathe in the sacred 
tank at one time in order to have their 
sins washed away. Alas! the only visible 
result of this annual bath is filth, disease 



in battle during a thunderstorm at Wa-Fang-Kau. 


Cossacks and Japanese cavalry 

the greatest of the “melas,” such as is 
held at Thanesur, in Lodiana. 

VAST NUMBERS OF PILGRIMS. 

At this last named place it sometimes 
happens that from six hundred thousand 


and death, conditions which sometimes 
almost reduce to despair the scores of 
missionary societies at work in India. 

In China the missionary is saddened by 
the sight of a great number of wayside 
shrines or sacred trees. There is one, for 


















7-14 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


example, near the city of Ichang which 
has been worshipped for years as a tree 
inhabited by a divinity who must be con¬ 
ciliated as being likely to confer many 
favors. 

In every Chinese house the ancestral 
tablets will be seen, from twelve to fifteen 
inches high, with the names of departed 
ancestors carved upon them. Every day 
incense is burned before them, as well as 
money and paper clothing for the use of 
the dead. In the great town of Shao- 
Hing, the centre of the extensive wine in¬ 
dustry, there is a regular traffic carried 
on in the making of “tinfoil spirit 
money,” such as may be burned and thus 
sent to another world for the convenience 
of departed ancestors. 

DEVIL TREES. 

Apropos of Corea, these people, too, 
have their wayside tree shrines, and a 
unique photograph of a devil tree in 
Corea has been caught by the camera. 
These people believe that a devil has 
taken up his residence in this part of the 
road, and so every traveler who passes 
either throws a stone at the roots of the 
tree or else hangs a rag on one of its 
branches to divert the attention of the 
devil or else to propitiate him should he 
be in a bad humor. And it may be well 
to remark that no ordinary Corean is ever 
at a loss to find a rag on his person. 


In Burmah and Siam the temples on 
feast days are wonderful sights of color 
owing to the lovely silks worn by men 
and women alike, and in Burmese towns 
like Bhamo one may often see the most 
fantastic processions, carrying colossal 
dragons looped upon poles through the 
streets. 

In west Africa the missionary has to 
contend with the witch doctor and devil 
dancer, who exercise most potent influ¬ 
ence over the benighted heathen. These 
devil dancers usually wear weird and fan¬ 
tastic masks and strange, uncouth coats 
of hair and wool. 

It is a sight nothing short of terrible 
to see twenty or thirty of these fiendish 
looking creatures dancing about in a 
clearing surrounded by “wattle and 
daub huts, when late at night the fires 
throw flickering flames upon their horri¬ 
ble masks and the murderous looking 
knives of sacrifice which they hold in 
their hands. 

Human sacrifice, by the way, is still 
practiced in many parts of Central and 
West Central Africa, and also in New 
Guinea, Borneo and many of the islands 
of the south seas. This dreadful custom 
may be due either to the suggestion of a 
native priest or merely to a desire to col¬ 
lect numbers of heads as trophies. 


TELEPATHY. 


OPINIONS OF GOLDWIN SMITH, 
THE GREAT CANADIAN 
SCHOLAR. 

There has appeared an account by Mr. 
Rider Haggard of a telepathic communi¬ 
cation between him and his favorite dog 


which he evidently considered of great 
importance. It seems he had a nightmare 
in which he dreamed that his dog was 
being killed and cried to him for help. 
It turned out that the dog had been killed 
about that hour. It does not seem that 




RECENT FADS OF THOUGHT 


745 


the coincidence of time was exact, while 
as to the manner of the dog’s death the 
dream gave no sign, or none that could 
be deemed a coincidence. The narrative, 
I confess, seemed to me less important as 
a proof of mysterious agency than as a 
proof of the extent to which fancy can 
operate on very slight materials, even in 
a strong mind. Mr. Haggard designates 
his dream as a nightmare; the cause of 
nightmare is indigestion; and it is difficult 
to believe that indigestion is a factor in 
the operations of the spirit world. 

All the cases of telepathy of which I 
have read have seemed to me to resolve 
themselves either into fulfillments of nat¬ 
ural expectations, as in the case of warn¬ 
ings that a person known to be sick is 
dead, or into accidental coincidences, of 
which in the chapter of accidents there 
are sure to be many, some of them curious 
and striking, the occurrence being after¬ 
ward dressed up by the retroactive im¬ 
agination of which we are all apt to be 
the unconscious dupes. It has been re¬ 
marked that there has often been a letter 
in the case and that the letters have not 
been produced. 

A SPECIAL INSTANCE. 

I may mention an instance of acci¬ 
dental coincidence which fell within my 
own knowledge. A person living at Ox¬ 
ford was staying at a house at some dis¬ 
tance from that city. Crossing a heath, 
he was attacked by faintness and lay for 
some time prostrate on the heath. When 
he got back to the house in which he was 
staying he found that at the very moment 
when he was lying on the heath a tele¬ 
gram had been received from his servant 
at Oxford asking whether it was true that 


he had died suddenly. Another person of 
the same name had died suddenly. This 
was the explanation. Had the fainting 
fit ended differently, here would have been 
a telepathic warning, and if not with a 
letter, with a telegram as its proof. 

As to spiritualism, one can only won¬ 
der that the imposture should have sur¬ 
vived such a series of exposures. It in 
fact exposes itself, since the spirits must 
materialize before we can be made sen¬ 
sible of their presence. The planchette 
has produced nothing but absurdities. 
Such a mode of communication adopted 
by spirits is a flagrant absurdity in itself. 
The delusion is probably kept alive by the 
craving for intercourse with the lost ob¬ 
jects of affection. I believe I once told 
you my own experience. The premier 
medium of the day, illumined by a spirit 
which had entered him, recounted to me 
the misfortunes of my nephew, when a 
nephew I never had. In this case I rather 
suspected that the spirit was trading on a 
hint given her by a friend who was him¬ 
self misinformed. When I asked whether 
I was married, the answer was that I 
seemed to be alone in the material world 
and vet not alone. 

J 

INSTINCT FOR THE SUPERNAT¬ 
URAL. 

It is needless to sav that there has al- 

J 

ways been a craving for the supernatural, 
which has shown itself in the eclipses of 
religion. With the collapse of Roman 
religion came the mysteries of Isis; with 
the collapse of mediaeval Catholicism 
came the prevalence of astrology, which 
captured minds so powerful in different 
ways as those of Wallenstein and Kepler. 
Such fancies as spiritualism, telepathy, 



BOOK OF THE TIMES 


746 


planchette, seem to be the offspring of a 
similar void in the soul, created by the 
departure of traditional religion. They 
will not help us to save or revive our 
spiritual life. They will act in the oppo¬ 
site way. They will seduce us into 
groveling superstition. There are physi¬ 


cal mysteries still to he solved by physi¬ 
ology, no doubt. The creative action of 
the imagination in dreams is one of them, 
linked no doubt with the general mys¬ 
tery, still profound, of memory. But 
there is no place for the supernatural. 
Let us put that away forever. 





SPECIAL UNCLASSIFIED RARITIES OF 
POPULAR INTEREST IN NOTABLE FANCY AND 
FACT FROM OVER THE WORLD 


PORTIONS OF THE EARTH STILL UNEXPLORED. 


LY two great prizes now 
await the present day explor¬ 
er, the north pole and the 
south pole. It is interesting 
to note how the scene of geographical in¬ 
terest shifts from one region to another. 
Africa, Arctica, Antarctica have followed 
in succession. What will it be next, 
or will some of the old loves continue to 
claim our advances until full surrender? 

The most prominent feature of geo¬ 
graphical work has been the activity in 
Antarctic exploration. England. Germany, 
Sweden, Scotland, Belgium, and France 
have all sent ships to this region, and the 
result has been to wonderfuly increase 
our knowledge of that most interesting 
portion of the globe. 

In the Arctic field there has been con¬ 
tinued activity. Abruzzi, the able and 
energetic young Italian duke, has in a 
splendid and effective dash recorded the 
nearest approach to the pole, and has by 
his experience eliminated Franz Josef 
Land from further consideration as a polar 
base. 

Mr. Ziegler, with commendable persist- 
ense, is pushing his attack upon the pole 
via Franz Josef Land, and news from his 
expedition may be received at any time. 
Amundsen is in the field laying siege to 
the north magnetic pole. But there re¬ 
mains still the pole itself, and the mystery 
of that 3,000,000 square miles about it, 


which stands as a challenge and a reproach 
to us. 

In Asia, “the roof of the world,” there 
have been numbers of workers. The 
American explorers, Pumpelly and the 
Workmans, have done good work. The 
latter have attained the highest altitude 
yet reached by human beings, 7,135 
meters. But the magnificent work of 
Sven Hedin, the great Swedish traveler, 
far surpasses that of all other explorers in 
this region. In fact, this explorer undoubt¬ 
edly stands foremost in energy and extent 
and accuracy of his work among the active 
explorers of die day. 

Lhassa, “the forbidden city,” the mys¬ 
tery and secret of central Asia, the unat¬ 
tained objective of many travelers, has 
been reached and reported upon by sev¬ 
eral, and today the English military ex¬ 
pedition of Captain Younghusband occu¬ 
pies the city. The sacred city of the 
lama's is a mystery no longer. In Africa, 
once “the dark continent,” the work of 
large exploration is at an end, and has 
been succeeded by the work of division 
and colonization. No longer the “dark 
continent,” it is known in its geographic 
entirety better perhaps than South Amer¬ 
ica. 

The fine French surveys in the central 
Soudan, L’Enfant’s determination of 
actual water communications between 
Lake Tchad and the Atlantic through the 



717 


















748 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Niger system, and young Grogan’s feat, 
the longitudinal traverse of the continent 
from Cape Town to Cairo, are worthy of 
note. Abyssinia in Africa, like Tibet in 
Asia, is being traversed and studied by 
travelers of various nationalities, and 
Ethiopia is emerging toward a place 
among the nations of the world. 

In North America, “the granary of the 
world,” numbers of explorers have been 
busy, more particularly in Alaska and tbe 
northern portion of the continent. A fea¬ 
ture, perhaps, of this region, has been the 
recent activity of the Canadian govern¬ 
ment in exploiting the northern- lands, 
though more in a political than a geo¬ 
graphical mood. In South America the 
main work has been that of the govern¬ 
ment boundary commissions. 

In Europe, “the metropolis of the 
world,” geographical work is now of nec¬ 
essity a work of detail and rigid scien¬ 
tific development. Of this class of work 
perhaps no better example can be given 
than that inaugurated and carried on by 
Sir John Murray in the Scottish lakes. 

In the domain of the oceans the material 
obtained in connection with the surveys 
for the Pacific cables and the development 
of the Pacific “great deeps” stand promi¬ 
nent. 

So much for the work in the field, the 
work which by many is regarded as only 
the raw material. What yet remains to 
be done? 

The fact of my personal interest in the 
polar field does not affect the truth of the 
broad statement that there is no longer 


any great pioneer work of geographical 
discovery to be accomplished except at 
the apices of the earth, at the north and 
south poles. Here alone large areas, 
guarded by the sternest natural obstacles 
to be found upon the face of the earth, 
still challenge and defy conquest. 

It has been the fashion during the last 
few years in the interest and enthusiasm 
excited for Antarctic work to decry fur¬ 
ther Arctic work as not likely to be of 
value, and to' assume that in the Antarctic 
region alone is there a field for really val¬ 
uable scientific investigation. There are 
no 3,000,000 square miles of the earth’s 
surface that do not contain scientific in¬ 
formation of value much greater than the 
cost of securing it. 

Uninfluenced by prospects of gain, by 
dreams of colonization, by land lust, or 
politics, the centuries’ long struggle of 
the best and bravest sons of England, 
Germany, Norway, Sweden-, Holland, 
France, Russia, Italy, and the United 
States has made this field of effort classic, 
almost sacred. 

The south pole, from a practical geo¬ 
graphic point of view, is no less a prize 
than the north pole, but the north pole 
has a place in history, in literature, in 
sentiment, if you will, which the south 
pole will never hold. 

There are two other geographical feats 
of primary magnitude yet to be accom¬ 
plished by the explorer. The culminating 
peak of Asia remains yet to be won. The 
culminating point of North America re¬ 
mains yet untrodden by human foot. 




Terrific destruction of shell filled with explosive invented by Professor Shimose. A six- 
inch shell filled with guncotton makes a hole through a steel target no larger than the 
shell itself but this tears an opening three feet in diameter and flies into three thousand 
pieces. 



















750 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


ARE OTHER PLANETS INHABITED? 


Camille Flammarion, the eminent 
French astronomer, declares that not only 
is the planet Mars inhabited, but that its 
inhabitants, in all probability, are more 
advanced in the line of progress than we 
are, enjoy a more enlightened and spir¬ 
itual life and know a great deal more 
about the earth than we know about their 
planet. 

Mars is more carefully watched by as¬ 
tronomers than any other planet, he says, 
because it is known that it is actually 
approaching the earth, and the geograph¬ 
ical position of Mars is better known than 
that of our own globe. 

M. Flammarion supports his opinion by 
scientific discoveries and deductions and 
inclines to the belief that, sooner or later, 
we will be able to exchange signals with 
the Martians. He says: 

It is known that Mars is actually ap¬ 
proaching the earth; that astronomers 
have their eyes upon it, and that luminous 
projections have been noted, of which ex¬ 
planation is possible, and we know, more¬ 
over, that the discovery of canallike lines 
in the planet has led to the question of 
possible inhabitants of Mars, and of the 
probability of a future communication 
with them. 

It is hard to realize that the geograph¬ 
ical position of Mars is better known 
than that of our own globe, but when a 
picture of the north or south pole of Mars 
is seen, it must he acknowledged that it 
is impossible to give the presentment of 
the same parts of our planet. 

The polar snows are observed to bright¬ 
en and grow warm under the sun, which 


melts them rapidly in a summer twice as 
long as ours, until they almost entirely 
disappear, leaving only a little ice upon a 
point which we know represents the cold 
pole, 340 kilometers distant from the geo¬ 
graphical pole. None of these details are 
known about the same points on our own 
planet, and even the inhabitants of Mars 
may be ignorant of them if they have not 
been within reach of them. 

YEAR TWICE AS LONG AS OURS. 

We can draw all the geographical con¬ 
figurations, seas, coasts, islands, penin¬ 
sulas, mouths of rivers or canals of Mars 
with accuracy; and we can anticipate what 
district will appear in the lens of the tel¬ 
escope for the length of the rotation of 
the planet is known to the hundredth part 
of a second. As the planet turns upon its 
axis more slowly than ours, the calendar 
of the inhabitants of Mars is composed of 
two consecutive years of 668 days and a 
bisextile one of 669 days. 

I do not think these luminous points 
seen on Mars have been placed by en¬ 
gineers or astronomers of the world of 
Mars, and it would be preposterous to 
suppose that the sixty rectangular canals, 
parallel and double, which we admire upon 
this same planet, putting all the Martian 
seas in communication with each other, 
are the work of the inhabitants of the 
sphere—this is not the conclusion I wish 
to draw. Nevertheless, it is none the less 
true that if the inhabitants of Mars 
wished to address signals to us, this mode 
of proceeding would he one of the most 
simple, and it is even now the only one 





NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


thinkable by us. They could not have 
chosen a better place for their luminous 
beacons, although I am far from saying' 
that it is so. But only if it were so, it 
is we who would not have understood. 

MORE ADVANCED IN PROGRESS. 

The inhabitants of Mars, being of a 
much more ancient origin than we are, 
may he more advanced in the line of 
progress, and enjoy a more enlightened 
and spiritual life. We may even admit 
that they are more learned than we are in 
the study of nature, and that they know 
our world better than we know theirs, 
and that our astronomical science is only 
in its infancy compared with theirs. 

If, then, the people of Mars, living per¬ 
haps a highly intelligent life, did think of 
addressing signals to our world in the idea 
that our planet was also inhabited by an 
intellectual race, they probably concluded 
when they received no reply that astrono¬ 
my and optics were not advanced with us, 
and that we had not progressed beyond 
mere material instincts. 

It is not exaggeration to say that there 
is no limit to the number of forms in 
which life manifests itself, and this fact 
is an argument to those who trust that 
there are superior beings in the distant 
world. It shows that directly the primary 
germs exist there is a possibility of a com¬ 
plete development, and that nature never 


751 


lacks form in proportion to the exterior 
conditions. Thus it is that we have the 
right to suppose that in Mars there may 
be creatures with the manifestations of 
animal life and in the enjoyment of intel¬ 
lectual faculties. 

ATMOSPHERE MUCH LIKE OURS. 

In Mars we can clearly recognize the 
subdivision of the surface into water and 
terra firma. Its atmosphere has proper¬ 
ties which accord with our own; not only 
do we certainly find aqueous vapor there, 
but spectroscopic researches prove that 
its principal components are the same as 
those of the terrestrial atmosphere, and 
that consec|uently it contains oxygen and 
nitrogen. Sometimes lines of clouds hide 
the planet from our view, and sometimes 
they disappear, to reappear in other 
places. 

The extent of snow and ice covering 
its poles varies with the seasons. Albeit 
the temperature of Mars must be sensibly 
lower than ours from its being farther 
from the sun, the difference is not consid¬ 
erable enough to he an obstacle to the 
stable existence of organic matter in the 
hot and temperate zones. The torrid zone 
of Mars must nearly correspond climato- 
logically to our temperate one. We can 
therefore state this fact in favor of Mars 
as an abode suitable to life such as exists 
upon earth. 


HOW TO GET FAT OR THIN. 

The United States Government has is- This represents the latest scientific 
sued a bulletin upon its investigation of knowledge upon that subject, 
food values which gives very implicit in- If you are too fat, you may readily de¬ 
struction upon making or reducing ones pose of the superfluous “adipose” by giv- 
weight. ing up four or five articles of diet. In- 




BOOK OF THE TIMES 


752 


deed, you can easily reduce your weight 
at the rate of half a pound to a pound a 
day, if you will temporarily abandon only 
potatoes, candy, and bread. On the other 
hand, if you are anxious to achieve 
plumpness there are suitable and corre¬ 
sponding means to be adopted. 

REGULATE THE FUEL FOODS. 

Boiled down, the system—which is no 
fad, but based upon the exact conclusions 
of science—amounts simply to a recogni¬ 
tion of certain articles of diet as “fuel 
foods.” Such foods (among which 
bread and potatoes are conspicuous) are 
burned, chemically, in the body to run the 
body machine. What is not consumed in 
this way is stored as fat. Hence it fol¬ 
lows that the fuel foods should be pre¬ 
ferred by overthin folks and studiously 
avoided by those who have a tendency to 
corpulence. 

The most attractive feature of this sys¬ 
tem is that you can have as much as you 
want to eat. If you are anxious to get 
thinner you may indulge in good and ap¬ 
petizing food to an unlimited extent, and 
yet, if you obey the simple rules, you will 
steadily lose flesh. Indeed, the result is 
beautifully certain. Would you, for ex¬ 
ample, like to lose a pound and a half in 
the first twenty-four hours, one pound 
the next day, and an average of three- 
quarters of a pound thereafter? If so, 
you have only to follow these instruc¬ 
tions : 

FLESH REDUCING DIET 
BOUNTIFUL. 

Eat meat—any kind you want and 
plenty of it, but only the lean part. Eat 
eggs, as many of them as you like. Eat 
all the fruit you can stuff, barring only 


bananas. Eat every vegetable, excepting 
potatoes and corn. But cut out pastry, 
bread, and sweets. 

You see, meat fat does not go to make 
muscle or blood. Such of it as is not 
consumed as fuel is converted into fat 
in the body. The same is true of sugar, 
and of wheat, and the other cereal grains. 
Therefore it is that these things must be 
avoided if one desires a shrinkage of the 
belt. 

Nearly all vegetables, fortunately, are 
mainly water, and water, of course, 
doesn't fatten. Beets, for example, and 
carrots, celery, tomatoes, cauliflower, cab¬ 
bages, lettuce, cucumbers, egg plant, and 
turnips may be eaten to an unlimited ex¬ 
tent—a variety surely sufficient for any¬ 
body. All fruits, except bananas, are in 
the same category, and for this reason a 
person threatened with over-plumpness 
may consume them in unrestricted quan¬ 
tities. As for meats (if lean), as well as 
eggs, they are muscle and blood makers, 
and could never contribute fat to the most 
corpulently inclined individual. 

SWEETS AND FATS FOR THIN. 

It follows that, if you wish to be fatter, 
you must eat freely of those things which 
are forbidden to the overplump—especial¬ 
ly bread, pastry, cereal products of all 
kinds, potatoes, and sweets. 

One great advantage of the system, as 
already stated, is that it does not require 
the person who pursues it to make a mar¬ 
tyr of himself. Though butter is fatten¬ 
ing, one need not give it up, inasmuch 
as the quantity consumed under ordinary 
circumstances is small. Sugar is a fat 
producer, but a few lumps daily in one’s 
tea or coffee will not count. 







Horrors of War: Showing the field strewn with dead after an unsuccessful charge upon a Russian position. “Where is your regiment?” said 

an officer to a soldier returning from the field. “I am the regiment,” he replied. 





















754 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Sweets of all kinds are great fat pro¬ 
ducers, and stout people are apt to be par¬ 
ticularly fond of them. In which connec¬ 
tion it is worth noting that the use of 
sugar as food, in one shape or another, 
has increased enormously within the last 
few years. At the beginning of the nine¬ 
teenth century it was expensive—a lux¬ 
ury, indeed, almost beyond reach by the 
poor—but at present it is one of the 
cheapest articles of diet. 

HOLDING OBESITY IN CHECK. 

If anybody who finds himself or her¬ 
self beginning to get too fat will simply 
give up potatoes and bread for a while, 
the tendency will promptly cease. To 
abandon the latter is a hardship—how se¬ 
rious one realizes only after trying it for 
a few days—but the benefit gained amply 
pays for the sacrifice. Thin toast, thor¬ 
oughly crisped, may be eaten, and will 
prove a consolation. 

Prince Bismarck’s physician cured him 
of a tendency to obesity by forbidding 
him to drink anything at meals—a prac¬ 
tice which, for some reason not satisfac¬ 
torily explained, seems to have a tendency 
to make people fat. As for tea and cof¬ 
fee, they are usually taken too hot. Few 
persons realize that they habitually swal¬ 
low such fluids at a temperature which, 
if applied to the hands and feet, would 
inflict painful scalds. Most tea drinkers 
imbibe that beverage at 140 to 145 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit, while the cup itself is 
too hot to be held by the hand, yet no one 
can endure a foot bath above 115. 

OLD PEOPLE USUALLY LEAN. 

A person who is in a perfectly normal 
physical condition cannot get overplump, 


no matter what or how much he eats. 
Fat is a sure symptom of unhealth, and, 
if it increases beyond a certain point, it 
becomes a disease and promises a shorten¬ 
ing of days. Sir Henry Thompson, a 
famous authority, says: “Not one fat 
person in fifty lives to what is called a 
good old age. The typical man or woman 
of 80 or 90. still retaining a respectable 
amount of energy of body and mind, is 
lean and spare, and subsists on moderate 
rations.” 

How many old people do you know 
who are overfat ? Count them on your 
fingers, and you will find they are ex¬ 
ceedingly few. The reason is that cor¬ 
pulent persons rarely reach old age; they 
die first. For corpulence does not signify 
merely an excess of stomach; it means 
that there is an accumulation of fat around 
the heart and other vital organs, which 
interferes with their working. On this 
account it is that a stout person puffs and 
pants while walking upstairs. The heart 
pump, being clogged, finds difficulty in 
performing the extra work demanded 
of it. 

Unfortunately, such a condition of the 
body gives rise to a tendency to the accu¬ 
mulation of more fat, and so the mischief 
grows. It follows that the only proper and 
reasonable thing to do is to take the trou¬ 
ble at its beginning and, by a few little 
self-denials in the way of diet, prevent it 
from getting a start. 

SHOULD FOOD BE SALTED? 

This is no new question, but apparently 
it is not settled, says the Revue Scien- 
tifique. In an exhaustive discussion of it 
M. Rene Laufer concludes that while salt 
is absolutely necessary to the animal or- 




NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


755 


ganism, enough of it for our needs is con¬ 
tained naturally in our ordinary articles 
of food, so that the addition of it as a 
condiment is superfluous. Tales of disease 
caused by lack of salt he dismissed as un¬ 
trustworthy. Says M. Laufer: 

“The desire for salt is certainly univer¬ 
sal. It seems to have been used every¬ 
where at all times and in all civilizations. 
The same salt seasons today the miser¬ 
able portion of the Sudanese negro and 
the choice dishes of European tables. * 

* * The need of salt is not limited to 
man; many animals seek it with avidity. 

* * * So general a prediction, so im¬ 

perious a desire should not be regarded as 
a simple incident, that is certain; but 
do they correspond to an unavoidable ne¬ 
cessity ? 

“Is it not curious that the chloride of 
sodium should be the only salt that we 
take from nature to add to those con¬ 
tained in our food itself? Other mineral 
substances play a much more important 
part in the constitution of the tissues, the 
salts of lime and the phosphate of soda, 
for instance. * * * When we use 

these by themselves it is as medicine. 

“The taste for salt is not innate or in¬ 
stinctive; it is acquired. The mother's 
milk contains very little salt. Cow’s milk 
has at least four times as much, but even 
this amount the adult who should live on 
milk alone—say, three quarts a day— 
would take more chloride than he needs. 

“Man in a state of nature does not suit 


his food. Primitive people who lead a 
pastoral and nomadic life do not add salt 
to what they eat. * * * The same is 

true of animals. Dogs and cats do not 
like salt. Even the domestic herbivores 
get along very well if salt is not added to 
their food.” 

M. Laufer discredits all tales of illness 
from the discontinuance of salt. The 
French soldiers who were said to have 
suffered from lack of salt in the siege of 
Metz did so, he says, simply because they 
required it to hide the taste of the spoiled 
meat that they were forced to eat. The 
story of the Russian serfs who are re¬ 
ported to have fallen ill when deprived 
of salt by their lords bears on its face, M. 
Laufer thinks, marks of its falsity. 

Among the chief morbid symptoms said 
to follow the lack of salt is edema, or 
swelling, but the writer shows that now¬ 
adays a diet without salt is prescribed for 
this trouble, and has been effective in 
curing it. In the same way he disposes to 
his satisfaction of all the different ills said 
to arise when one is deprived of salt. 

Finally, he calculates the amount of 
salt necessary to carry on the processes 
of organic animal life and the amount lost 
by excretion and comes to the following 
conclusion : 

Our food, provided it constitutes a 
proper regimen in the physiologic sense 
of the word, contains in itself and with 
no necessity of adding to it from outside, 
sufficient salt for our needs. 


PART OF WOMAN’S PRICE FOR VANITY. 

Dermatological surgery has advanced money-making institutions of city life, 
under the influence of woman’s pursuit Projecting or ill-shapen ears, hare lip, 
of beauty until it has become one of the thick and protruding lips, humped, flat or 






756 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


crooked noses, all can be reduced to nor¬ 
mal lines; and facial blemishes, such as 
freckles, moth patches, scars, birthmarks, 
smallpox pits, moles, superfluous hair, 
liver spots and eruptions will yield to the 
right sort of treatment—and the mighty 
dollar. No scale of prices for these oper¬ 
ations can be quoted. The specialist 
gauges his price by the financial rating 
of his patient. An operation may cost 
fifty dollars or five hundred dollars, ac¬ 
cording to the will of the operator. 

Dimples are inserted by surgical meth¬ 
ods, and a double chin is removed by one 
of two ways. The chin is laid open and 
the surplus tissue is removed, after which 
the skin is sewed together, and by modern 
methods of surgery all traces of the 
stitches are removed. By the use of an¬ 
esthetics or cocaine, this is practically a 
painless operation, but it is less effective 
than the newer method of irritating the 
skin of the face and chin by some secret 
process which draws the superfluous 
abundance of flesh away from the chin 
and distributes it evenly over the rest of 
the face. 

SKINNING THE FACE FOR A 
COMPLEXION. 

Women will flinch at the thought of 
a visit to the dentist, or make much ado 
over some trifling cut or burn on the hand, 
but they will cheerfully submit to the 
shocking and painful process known as 
facial skinning. 

In this operation the entire upper layer 
of the skin of the face and neck is eaten 
off by acids, and a new layer is grown 
with what is promised to be the first flush 
of youth. It is generally known that the 
“Jersey Lily,” Mrs. Langtry, undergoes 


this operation as often as once in three 
years, and to this she owes her much- 
vaunted “English complexion.” But it 
is not generally known that she pays five 
thousand dollars to a French specialist 
every time she undergoes this operation. 

Nor is she alone when undergoing the 
treatment. At the same sanitarium in 
Paris are many other women, Americans 
in the majority, who are willing to take 
chances with their lives to acquire a 
“baby” complexion. The operation rep¬ 
resents complete isolation for two weeks, 
during which time the patient should 
neither speak nor laugh, because any fac¬ 
ial expression, or grimace, or active use 
of the muscles of the face, breaks the deli¬ 
cately new-formed skin and undoes the 
work of the specialist. 

It must not be thought that the actress 
is the main support of the beauty special¬ 
ist. The actress of the hour is too busy 
a woman to pursue beauty as patiently 
as does her lay sister. It is the society 
woman, the millionaire’s wife, and many 
a foolish woman who cannot afford the 
luxury, who are the main support of 
beauty shops. 

HOW THE THIN WOMAN WRECKS 
HER HEALTH. 

Education and science have done much 
to open the eyes of women regarding the 
care of her body and her health, but they 
have not cured her of many follies. She 
still eats arsenic for her complexion, still 
petrifies her eyes by the use of belladonna, 
still takes anti-fats to reduce her weight, 
and swathes her body in rubber bands for 
the same purpose. 

The thin woman does the most danger¬ 
ous thing of all when she submits to 





NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


T5T 



War at night under search lights and fire-works. Japanese lighting up Russian positions 

at Port Arthur. 





















758 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


paraffine injections with the hope of tak¬ 
ing on flesh. The paraffine is injected 
under the skin, much as morphine or any 
other narcotic, with the expectation that 
the blood will absorb it and make flesh. 
What the blood generally does absorb is 
poison in its worst form, and the woman's 
health is wrecked for life. 

But many a woman will take any 
chances to gain beauty. She will even 
allow a facial surgeon to lay open the skin 
on that most delicate point, the temple, 
cut out a V-shaped place and join the 
skin, so that her cheeks, which have 
grown flabby, will be raised or drawn up 
to resume the old rounded contour. 

The most striking evidence of the state¬ 
ment that many a woman will pay any 
price, even that of health, is shown in the 
rushing business done by a New York 
sanitarium whose specialty is undoing the 
mischief wrought by irresponsible, so- 
called beauty doctors. Here come women 
with ruined digestions, disfiguring erup¬ 
tions, with blood poison in its most viru¬ 
lent form—all the result of a profitless, 
foolhardy chase after beauty. 

If the woman who plays the social game 
for all it is worth and is compelled to 
supply by artificial means the loss of 
sleep and to repair by the same means the 
ravages of eternal excitement, indigestible 
foods and social strenuosity in general, 
will sit down calmly and figure up her 
expenses, she will find that it costs her 
about five thousand dollars a year to keep 
her hands and her eyes in condition. 

This expense item does not include doc¬ 
tors’ or dentists’ bills or the services of 
her maid. It represents only what she 
pays to beauty doctors, masseurs, mani¬ 
curists, hairdressers and chiropodists. Her 


maid has time only for dressing her mis¬ 
tress, preparing her bath, perhaps, and 
laying forth her raiment. Specialists in 
the other arts of the toilette are called in 
at regular intervals, and in every large 
city there are house-to-house manicurists, 
hairdressers and masseurs who make a 
good living, either on their own account, 
or by working on commission for some 
recognized beauty doctor. 

The woman who can pay five thousand 
dollars to make herself presentable gives 
up the price cheerfully, almost carelessly. 
The woman who can spend only five hun¬ 
dred or perhaps even fifty dollars grieves 
at the smallness of her allowance for such 
expenditures. 

NEW YORK BEAUTY MAD. 

In no city in the world is this mad 
search for beauty carried on so frantically 
as in New York. Here come women 
from all over the United States in search 
of beauty specialists, not because they 
have no beauty doctors in their own town, 
but because they prefer to have the trans¬ 
formation wrought away from home, 
trusting that such a trifling change as 
having the hair dyed from copper color 
to black will be laid, not to the hair spe¬ 
cialist, but to the change of climate and 
scenery. 

The very atmosphere of New York life, 
its showiness and its frothiness, make 
women place a false estimate on the value 
of beauty and appearance. The average 
New York woman is a monomaniac on 
the subject of being well groomed. A 
woman engaged in business or art pur¬ 
suits, making perhaps twenty-five dollars 
a week, will cheerfully pay one-fifth of 
this sum to the proprietor of a beauty 



NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


759 


shop. She lays it aside as a weekly tax. 

This amount paid regularly to the same 
beauty parlor will insure her the follow¬ 
ing attentions: Her hands manicured 
twice a week, her hair shampooed once a 
week and dressed daily, and one facial 
massage. These rates are secured only 
by special arrangement, and the beauty 
doctor, like the dentist, has a sliding scale 
of prices. He has a shrewd and not un¬ 
kindly way of charging his regular cus¬ 
tomer in proportion to her possessions. 

A woman who goes to the shop will 
pay fifty or seventy-five cents to have her 
hands manicured. If she has a house-to- 
house manicurist she will pay from one 
to two dollars, according to the standing 
of the shop which she patronizes, and she 
will tip the girl in addition. Her hands 
are done once a day usually before she 
arises in the morning or directly after she 
has her chocolate. 

THE HAIRDRESSERS’ GOLDEN 
HARVEST. 

The prices charged by hairdressers are 
also variable, but it is seldom that a first- 
class hairdresser will build a coiffure for 
a ball under five dollars. Three dollars 
an hour is the minimum price for a good 
masseur. A combination of electrical 
treatment and facial massage given at 
home will cost five dollars an hour; and 


during the social season the woman who 
begins to note the footmarks of time on 
her face will have this done once a day. 
Two dollars and a half is the price of 
scalp massage, and the woman who fears 
her hair is coming out, or who notes that 
it is lacking in lustre, will endure this 
treatment and the price thereof for 
another hour. 

Every beauty-seeking woman has her 
fad in the way of baths—Turkish, Rus¬ 
sian. electrical, sun or anatomical scrub. 
The last named includes a species of mas¬ 
saging on scientific principles and is ex¬ 
tremely expensive. 

The figures given above show merely 
what is paid for keeping the skin in good 
condition. It does not include artificial 
aids. A woman will endeavor to rest 
at night with her face clutched in a com¬ 
plexion mask, which is to the old-fash¬ 
ioned curling pins what the instruments 
of the Inquisition were to the tickling of 
a fly. She will insist that she can sleep in 
this mask, and pay a hundred dollars for 
the privilege of doing it. However, an 
up-to-date woman would rather sacrifice 
some of the daytime hours to masseurs 
and complexion specialists, and she is per¬ 
fectly willing to pay two hundred francs, 
or forty dollars, for a pot of rouge smaller 
than a napkin ring. 


EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE. 


There is a very common saying, “That 
every man has his price," meaning that 
every man has a price at which he will 
give up honor and character, falsify every 
obligation of duty and betray every trust 
confided to him. 


This infamous expression has been so 
often uttered by word of mouth and in 
print, that many people have come to re¬ 
gard it as true, and they quote it as a 
proverb, when it is a vile slander on 
human nature and is only the defense 




7C,0 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


made bv those who have sold themselves. 

It is not surprising that every rascal 
wishes it were true so that he would not 
feel ashamed and humiliated in the pres¬ 
ence of honesty, virtue and honor, but he 
knows better. He knows, if he has any 
experience with the world, that there are 
men who have withstood great tempta¬ 
tions to do evil and have remained faith¬ 
ful to the end, and even the dishonest 
classes respect such a man. 

The history of the human race from the 
beginning is a record of the good and the 
bad, living together in the same commu¬ 
nity and engaged in the business of life 
more or less together. No community in 
no age of the world has been so abso¬ 
lutely under the domination of evil that 
there were not left in it some honest, up¬ 
right and faithful men. When one of the 
ancient holy prophets declared his belief 
that all the people of the country in which 
he lived had gone after false gods, he 
was rebuked by the divine information 
that there were still among them seven 


thousand men who had not bowed the 
knee to Baal. 

The annals of the human race are filled 
during periods of centuries with the glor¬ 
ious history of the Christian martyrs 
whom neither the offers of power, posi¬ 
tion and all the pleasures that heathen 
luxury could tempt, nor the threats of im- 

* 

mediate and most cruel torture and death 
intimidate, but who remained true to 
their principles and every obligation of 
duty, and went to the stake, to the axe 
and to the torture chamber with the cour¬ 
age and fortitude that only a sublime 
sense of right, of honor and truth could 
create. But the heroes of truth, virtue 
and honesty have never been confined to 
any age. They have stood as examples 
at very period of the world's history to 
cheer on and strengthen for the battle of 
life and the irrepressible conflict with evil 
their comrades and those who should 
come after them; and today they are no 
more lacking than at any other period. 


HOW TO CULTIVATE MEMORY BY SIMPLE MENTAL 

EXERCISES. 


Many people complain of having a poor 
memory, and yet that faculty can be 
developed as easily as can the biceps mus¬ 
cle. Nor is it necessary to go to any pro¬ 
fessor of memory or to master any elabo¬ 
rate system in order to accomplish this 
result. One does not have to go to a gym¬ 
nasium to strengthen the arm or back. 
Chopping wood or rowing a boat will do 
it. Similarly, memory may be cultivated 
by an effort and amid ordinary pursuits. 

One man made the Sunday service of 
his church serve as a memory exercise. 


After the service he would endeavor to 
call the numbers of all the hymns sung, 
the chapters and verses of the lessons, 
words of the anthem, the text and points 
of the sermon. This required paying close 
attention and a conscious effort to im¬ 
press these things upon his mind. By this 
and other equally simple means he devel¬ 
oped a memory that was absolutely at his 
command. 

Famous speakers who have memorized 
their speeches have adopted various sim¬ 
ple devices to aid them. One noted orator 




Section of monster cranes used for carrying away the huge blocks of stone blasted from the bed of the Chicago drainage canal. 



































BOOK OF THE TIMES 


762 


fixed in mind the different points in his 
speeches by first drawing little figures or 
pictorial representations. If part of his 
speech had to do with a bridge he would 
make a little sketch of such a structure, 
or, if with Cuba or the Philippines, he 
would sketch a small map of these islands. 
He could remember these little figures or 
pictures. When he rose to his feet he 
could see them in imagination and select 
them one by one as he proceeded from 
point to point in the address, not having 
any note or manuscript by him at all. 
That was the method best suited to him. 

Certain people possess what may be 
called the bump of location. If they re¬ 
member a passage in a book they can 
tell you which side of the page it is on 
and on what part of the page. There are 
students with that kind of a memory who 
prepare their recitations by taking a large 
sheet of paper and writing different parts 
of the lesson in different places on the 
paper. They then rely on their sense of 
location to call to mind whatever they 
wish to remember. 

Again, there are people who have a 
keen eye for color. They will make their 
memoranda on slips of paper of different 
colors. Then simply calling to mind a 
particular color will enable them to re¬ 
member the memorandum associated with 
that color. Of course, all this is based 
on what is known as the faculty of as¬ 
sociation of ideas. 


Some people who can remember words 
and phrases find difficulty in remembering 
figures or numbers. In such cases a 
curious expedient has sometimes been re¬ 
sorted to. A phrase will be devised, the 
initial letters of which suggest the fig¬ 
ures sought to be remembered. For ex¬ 
ample, suppose some ones street number 
to be 182. The suggestive phrase might 
be “I seek him.” The letter I will sug¬ 
gest the figure 1; the letter S somewhat 
resembles an 8, and the two perpendicular 
strokes of the H suggest the Roman 
numeral II. A roundabout method this 
may be, but it has served to fasten fig¬ 
ures in the memory of people who had 
previously found them troublesome. 

But perhaps the most wholesome way 
in the long run is simply by repetition and 
effort to fix the thing in the memory di¬ 
rectly without tricks of memory or arti¬ 
ficial methods. By memorizing each day 
one sentence or verse from the best lit¬ 
erature the mind will soon have a fine 
treasury of beautiful thoughts and an en¬ 
riched vocabulary. 

For quotation purposes it is necessary 
to remember verbatim, and though this is 
the hardest task of memory, it well repays 
the effort. Once trained, the memory will 
be able to recall the exact words of con¬ 
versations, sermons and passages in books 
without having made any conscious effort 
to commit them. 


STRANGEST NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD. 


Budapest has a newspaper that always 
“scoops” its rivals and is able to issue an 
extra literally on a minute’s notice. The 
name of this unique journal is Telefon- 


Hirmondo, the telephone newspaper. Hav¬ 
ing been in existence for over ten years, it 
has ceased to be an experiment. The news 
is gathered and handled precisely as in the 



NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


703 


office of an ordinary newspaper, except 
that instead of putting the type into forms 
for the press galley proofs are given to 
six stentors, with strong, clear, distinct 
voices, who speak the news into receivers 
connected with wires leading to the homes 
and business places of subscribers, of 
whom there are 6,200. 

A complete programme is tacked to the 
wall above each subscriber's receiver, so 
that he can tell at a glance what depart¬ 
ment of news is to be expected at any 
hour, every day except Sundays and holi¬ 
days having the same programme. The 
issue begins at 10 130 a. m. and ends about 

10 130 p. m., unless a concert or some late- 

at-night event is to be reported. Tbe stock 
exchange reports reach subscribers sev¬ 
eral hours ahead of the evening papers. 
At 1 :30 and 6 p. m. comes a resume for 
those who have missed the earlier news. 
From 5 to 6 there are concerts, varied by 
literary criticisms, sporting news and so 
on. Special items for Sunday are : 11 to 

11 130, news; 4 130 to 6, a concert. On 
Thursday evening at 6 comes a concert for 
children. 

To facilitate the service the city is di¬ 
vided into twenty-seven districts, with a 
main wire to each district and branch 
wires into the houses. An accurate map 
of the system hangs in the office. The 
company owns its own wires and plant, 
and has the same right to place wires en¬ 
joyed by the telephone and telegraph com¬ 


panies. Twenty-seven copper wires run 
from microphone receivers at the opera 
house to the central office. There the cur¬ 
rent passes through a patent device which 
increases the sound, its distribution to 
subscribers also’ being regulated by an 
ingenious patent device. 

It might be inferred that such a 
newspaper would be costly to its patrons. 
As a matter of fact, each of the 6,200 
subscribers pays about $7.50 a year, or a 
trifle over 2 cents a day. The paper car¬ 
ries a fair amount of advertising. It is 
always aide to guarantee that the “ads” 
will appear “next to reading matter,” for 
the “ads” are sent over the wires between 
items of news, and the stentors are par¬ 
ticular to enunciate the “ads” in such a 
way as to make them attractive. Instead 
of using display type, this paper uses 
display tones, and a stentor who knows 
his business can fairly make people be¬ 
lieve they want the articles advertised. 

The expenses of the newspaper are about 
$45,000 a year, while its receipts from 
subscribers are nearly $47,000 a year. As 
the advertising, at the rate of 42 cents 
for twelve seconds of space, amounts to 
a small fortune in the course of a year, 
it will be seen that the company is paying 
good dividends on its capital stock of 
$250,000. The company expects to have 
sufficient surplus soon to warrant a re¬ 
duction in the cost to subscribers. 


A LIBRARY 8,904 YEARS OLD. 

TABLETS TAKEN FROM ONE AT was founded in 1851. That makes it 
NIPPUR DATE BACK 7,000 B. C. very old, according to our standards. But 
The oldest city public library in tbe Prof. Angelo Hilprecht of tbe University 
United States is that of Boston, which of Pennsylvania has been examining a 



764 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


library, and a public library of some sort, 
which is a little older than that. It con¬ 
sists of a mass of documents, inscribed in 
cuneiform letters on tiles, in a wing of 
the temple of Baal at Nippur, the ancient 
Babylonian city which lies between the 
Tigris and the Euphrates. 

Prof. Hilprecht had already dug out of 
the ruins of this temple about 30,000 com¬ 
mercial, legal and literary tablets, and this 
last summer he has found 4,000 more. The 
tablets which he has discovered this year 
are the oldest ever, so to speak, for he 
declares that they date back as far as 
7,000 years before Christ. 

This discovery is startling in more 
senses than one. If the familiar and so- 
called biblical chronology is right the Nip¬ 
pur people had a library of documents 
and stories, probably free to those who 
could read them, some 1.336 years before 
Adam was created—or, according to 
Archbishop Ussher’s chronology, 1,192 
years before it; for this learned man sup¬ 
posed that exactly 4,004 years had elapsed 

MISCELLANEOUS FACTS 

HERDS OF WILD CAMELS IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

Camel-hunting in Arizona and camel¬ 
raising on a ranch is the latest idea on 
which William Sells, son of W. A. Sells, 
showman, is working. Sells says that his 
father conducted a dromedary hunt in the 
Cactus plains near Gila Bend in Mari¬ 
copa county, Arizona, twenty years ago, 
and managed to capture fifteen of the 
ships of the desert. Six of them got away 
or died while being brought east and the 
other nine went into the circus business. 

About thirty years ago the government 


from the creation of Adam to the birth 
of Christ, and 1904 years are supposed 
to have nearly elapsed since that date. 

This chronology has been somewhat 
discredited since Archbishop Ussher made 
his computations, and discredited largely 
as the result of such discoveries as those 
made by Prof. Hilprecht in Babylonia. It 
is to be said, however, that the more the 
old Assyrian or Babylonian records are 
looked into the more they increase the 
respect of students for the Hebrew scrip¬ 
tures. 

Reverence and authority most always 
go with the record which survives in 
men’s lives and thoughts. Ages after 
the temple of Baal and its great library 
had been “a possession for the bittern, 
and pools of water,” and after the very 
dust of the last survivor of the old librar¬ 
ians had vanished from the interior of its 
tomb, the stories of Genesis were still told 
by the living successors of the priests who 
compiled them. 

OF GENERAL INTEREST. 

imported a herd of camels to be used for 
transportation purposes across the desert. 
The experiment did not prove a success 
and the animals were turned loose. Some 
time later a Frenchman tried to resurrect 
the business and brought over another 
herd. He failed also, and also allowed 
his camels to roam at liberty. 

The two herds mixed and increased, 
and W. Allen Sells, having heard that 
there were nearly 1,000 of them, started 
out to round them up. He took a party 
of cowboys and riders from his circus, 
some experienced hunters and guides, and 






r® 

t •- • 3 v. • 1 

i 


I 


Section of giant cranes used on the Chicago drainage canal lifting away the huge buckets of stone. 




























BOOK OF THE TIMES 


70 6 


tried to capture the animals. The horses, 
however, would not approach within sev¬ 
eral hundred yards of the camels. 

Sells, nothing daunted, made a second 
attempt the following year, using as 
mounts for his party horses which by be¬ 
ing in the circus business were accus¬ 
tomed to the camels. Fifteen were cap¬ 
tured. 

William Sells proposes to duplicate his 
father's experience. He estimates that 
there are 2,000 camels in Arizona. With 
fifty mounted men, carrying lassoes, he 
will make a raid on the herds, and take 
those captured to his ranch in Kansas, 
where they will be broken of their wild 
habits and trained for circus use. 

WORLD’S LONGEST FENCE. 

The longest fence in the world is prob¬ 
ably that which has been erected by the 
Erie Cattle Company along the Mexican 
border. It is seventy-five miles in length, 
and separates exactly for its entire dis¬ 
tance the two republics of North Amer¬ 
ica. The fence was built to keep the 
cattle from running across the border and 
falling an easy prey to the Mexican cow 
punchers. Although it cost a great deal 
of money, it is estimated that cattle 
enough will be saved in one year to more 
than pay for it. It is a barbed wire 
fence, with mesquite and cotton wood 
poles, and for the entire length of it runs 
as straight as the crow flies. 

THE GYPSY MOTH. 

After spending over a million dollars 
in trying to exterminate the gypsy moth 
the State of Massachusetts has given up 
the struggle, and the insect, which is con¬ 
sidered by some to be worse than the San 


Jose scale, is now free to spread over the 
whole country, says Country Life in 
America. A dangerous colony already 
exists in Rhode Island. The caterpillars 
eat almost anything green, and they work 
from the time the leaves come out until 
about the first of September. A list has 
been made of 536 kinds of plants they will 
eat. They have been especially destruc¬ 
tive to the grand old elms, for which New 
England is famous, and they are also fond 
of our native oaks and willows and all 
kinds of fruit. Evergreens are stripped 
and killed in a single year. The cater¬ 
pillars sometimes crawl all over a house, 
and many houses have been abandoned 
by the disgusted tenants. It is five years 
since the Legislature refused to give any 
more money, and it would now cost far 
more to exterminate the gypsy moth than 
Massachusetts has spent so far. Never¬ 
theless the leading entomologists declare 
that the insect can be exterminated. 
Efforts are being made to get the New 
England States to co-operate. If they 
fail to do so it will be time for the 
National Government to take a hand. The 
gypsy moth is a European insect, which 
escaped from an entomologists’ labora¬ 
tory, and did not attract much attention 
for about twenty years. 

HOW COFFEE GROWS. 

L T p to 1690 the sole source of the coffee 

supply was Arabia, but in that year it was 

introduced into Java by the governor- 

general of the island, and the climate was 

found to be so well adapted to it that 

cultivation was begun on a large scale. 

One of the first plants grown in Java was 

■» 

sent to the botanical gardens at Amster¬ 
dam, and seed from it was sent to Suri- 





NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


11am, resulting in its introduction into that 
country in 1718. Ten years later it found 
its way to the West Indies, and from that 
time its cultivation has been general 
throughout the inhabited portions of the 
tropics. The regions best adapted to its 
culture are well-watered mountain slopes, 
varying from one to four thousand feet in 
altitude and between the parallels of 15 
degrees north and 15 degrees south 
latitude. 

According to the altitude at which it is 
grown, the coffee bean varies in size and 
color, that from the highlands being 
small and light green, and nearer the coast 
of a yellow tinge and much larger. The 
wild trees of Liberia, which flourish in 
lowlands, produce the largest beans 
known, which are, however, inferior in 
quality, as is the case with the majority 
of the African product. Eastern coffee 
generally may be distinguished by its 
yellow color and large beans, as compared 
with the smaller green berries of Central 
and South American growth. 

In its wild state the coffee tree is 
slender, reaching a height of twelve to 
tv/enty feet, but under cultivation it is 
pruned to grow not more than six or 
eight feet high. The leaves resemble 
those of the laurel, though not so dry and 
thick, and are evergreen, while the flowers 
are somewhat like the jasmine. The trees 
are completely covered with blossoms, 
which perfume the whole countryside. 
The fruit resembles the cherry very much, 
especially when ripe, when it is a dark 
purple. 

ORIGIN OF THE WHITE RACE. 

Gustave Michaud, the ethnologist, 
writes: “We have now every reason to 


707 


believe that both the Mediterranean and 
the Baltic branches of the white race are 
the result of the natural selection practiced 
by a cold climate upon northward-migrat¬ 
ing African negroes. Whatever be the 
cause of the amount of pigment existing 
in the skin of the latter, it seems to me 
that the decrease of it was unavoidable 
as soon as the race took to traveling north¬ 
ward. In northern countries, natural 
selection tends constantly to harmonize 
with the color of the snow that of every 
animal which hunts or which is hunted: 
why should the blondness of the northern 
man have a different origin? 

“Primitive tribes were doubtless fre¬ 
quently decimated by hunger, as the 
Canadian Indians are today. Those 
hunters who show on the snow a sallow 
face, black hair and beard, dark eyes, 
worked at a disadvantage when compared 
with somewhat lighter-complexioned 
comrades. They were more conspicuous 
on the white field, and could not so easily 
approach their prey within striking dis¬ 
tance. In time of famine, mortality was 
the greatest in their families. 

“This eliminating process was repeated 
generation after generation, the light- 
complexioned individuals always leaving 
the larger posterity. However small may 
have been the difference in the mortality, 
we know today that a characteristic 
against which such a process is at work, 
always in the same direction, is doomed 
to disappear.” 

CURIOUS BELL SOUND ON RED 

SEA. 

A singular phenomenon occurs on the 
borders of the Red sea at a place called 
Nakous, where intermittent underground 







BOOK OF THE TIMES 




sounds have been heard for an unknown 
number of centuries. It is situated at 
about a half-mile distant from the shore, 
whence a long reach of sand ascends 
rapidly to a height of 300 feet. This 
reach is about 800 feet wide, and 
resembles an amphitheater, being walled 
by low rocks. The sounds coming up 
from the ground at this place recur at 
intervals of about an hour. They at first 
resemble a low murmur, but ere long 
there is heard a loud knocking something 
like the strokes of a bell, and which at the 
end of about five minutes becomes so 
strong as to agitate the sand. The expla¬ 
nation of this curious phenomenon given 
by the Arabs is that there is a convent 
under the ground here, and that these 
monks ring for prayers. So they call it 
Nakous, which means a bell. The Arabs 
affirm that the noise so frightens their 
camels when they hear it as to render 
them furious. Philosophers attribute the 
sound to suppressed volcanic action— 
probably to the bubbling of gas or vapor 
under ground. 

EXTRAORDINARY VITALITY OF 
CERTAIN SEEDS. 

The length of time seeds will preserve 
their vitality differs amazingly in different 
plants. The seeds of the willow, for 
instance, will not germinate after having 
once been dry, and their germinating 
power is lost in two weeks even if during 
that interval they have been kept fresh. 
The seeds of coffee do not germinate 
after having been kept for any consider¬ 
able length of time. The grains of wheat 
lose their power and strength after a 
lapse of seven years, though wheat over 


two centuries old has been quite capable 
of being used for food. 

The story of “mummy wheat” sprout¬ 
ing after having lain dormant in Egyptian 
tombs for thousands of years, to say the 
least, sounds exceedingly dubious. No 
well authenticated instances of such finds 
are extant, while among other articles 
sold by the Arabs to credulous travelers 
as coming out of the same tomb as the 
ancient wheat have been dahlia bulbs and 
maize, the deposition of which, in the 
receptacle from which they were said to 
have been taken, makes it necessary to 
believe that three thousand years ago the 
subjects of Pharaoh were engaged in com¬ 
merce with America. Rye and wheat 
only 185 years old could not be induced 
to germinate, the place of the embryo 
being filled with a slimy and putrefying 
liquid. When kept secluded from light 
and dampness seeds have been known to 
keep for lengthened periods. 

The most unscientific observer has 
noticed how often plants appear in old 
ground which has been trenched which 
have never appeared in such spots pre¬ 
viously, and that after fires pass over 
localities plants equally strange to the 
neighborhood appear. It is noticed that 
when an American forest is fired the trees 
that take the place of the burned ones are 
of a different species from those hitherto 
observed in that neighborhood. After the 
great London fire in 1666 the yellow 
rocket appeared in great profusion for the 
first time in the district swept by the fire. 
These facts, which cannot be denied, have 
led to the theory that seeds may lie for 
long periods dormant and only spring into 
life when some stimulus, such as exposure 







Photograph showing construction of dome on the Chicago Postoffice. 













































770 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


to the sun, rain or heat, is applied to 
them. 

A scientist has recently discovered that 
an extensive tract of land at the silver 
mines of Laurium, in Greece, is covered 
by a luxuriant growth of horned poppies 
belonging to a hitherto unknown species. 
These plants have shot up through soil 
which has been covered to the depth of 
ten feet with the masses of cinder and 
slag thrown out by the workmen in 
ancient times when the mines were 
worked by the Greeks, and which have 
been recently disturbed in order that the 
imperfectly fused materials might be sub¬ 
jected to further process of fusion for the 
purpose of extracting their silver con¬ 
tents. 

MOST REMARKABLE PLANT 
KNOWN. 

Mrs. A. R. Cottrell of Minneapolis, 
Minn., has a night-blooming cereus that 
is 23 years old. Horticulturists pro¬ 
nounce it the most remarkable plant of its 
kind known to horticulture. It came into 
Mrs. Cottrell’s possession when it was 17 
years of age, up to which time it never 
bloomed. But she began to care for and 
feed it, with the result that it bloomed 
that year. The following year it was 
nonproductive, but each year since that 
time it has borne a number of flowers, 
some years having as many as six well- 
developed blossoms, besides a number of 
buds. 

The characteristic of this species of 
plant is that it blooms only at night. 
Usually it opens as soon as it has become 
thoroughly dark in the evening, or about 
9 o’clock, and remains open until about 
2 o’clock in the morning, when the bloom 


begins the slow process of folding its 
petals forever, which requires about two 
hours. Two years ago the plant developed 
a freak by one bloom remaining open con¬ 
stantly for thirty-two hours. The flower 
opened one evening about 6 o’clock, The 
evening was dark and rainy. The follow¬ 
ing day developed the same kind of 
weather and exceptionally heavy clouds 
lined the heavens during the entire day. 
With the approaching dawn the delicate 
bunch of fragrance showed no signs of 
its passing. 

During the day hundreds of persons 
viewed the remarkable freak of nature, 
which remained open until about 2 
o’clock the following morning. This 
year it has borne three blooms and the 
fourth one shows signs of opening. 

EXAMPLE OF THE TYRANNY OF 
MILITARISM. 

Militarism is responsible for another 
astonishing travesty on justice. Two 
musketeers were charged at Dessau with 
rioting and assaulting a superior officer. 
This officer, named Heine, entered a 
dancing saloon, intoxicated, and jostled 
and struck the partners of the musketeers, 
who on protesting, were attacked by 
Heine with drawn sword. They wrested 
the weapon from him, for which the 
prosecution asked that they be sentenced 
to five years at hard labor, dismissal from 
the army and loss of civil rights. 

When the prisoners’ counsel asked 
whether it was contended that soldiers 
had no right to act in self-defense, the 
prosecutor answered: 

“Just so. Self-defense is a conception 
which does not exist in the relations be¬ 
tween soldiers and their superiors. The 




NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


771 


inferior has the right of complaint, but 
not of resistance. It is absolutely neces¬ 
sary that a soldier should allow himself, 
if necessary, to be slaughtered by an 
officer, though the latter be making illegal 
use of the weapon.” 

The court pronounced sentence as de¬ 
manded, while Heine got only three 
months without loss of rank for being 
intoxicated. 

A few weeks previous to this, as the 
emperor was riding through the streets 
of Berlin, the people as usual were shout¬ 
ing their honors to the king when an old 
woman was heard to call out, “Honor to 
God, Honor to God.” 

She was at once arrested for insulting 
his majesty and imprisoned. An appeal 
was made direct to the emperor for her 
release but she had to serve out her term. 

THE VASTNESS OF SPACE. 

The greatest living astronomer, Prof. 
Simon Newcomb of the United States 
Naval Academy, gives some idea of the 
infinity of space as follows: 

Imagine around our solar system as 
centre a sphere with a radius 400,000 
times the distance of the sun, which is 
92,000,000 miles. Light, which leaps 
around the earth seven times in a second 
and reaches us from the sun in eight 
minutes and twenty seconds, would 
require seven years to reach us from the 
surface of this sphere. 

In that enormous space there is only 
one star besides our sun. 

Imagine another sphere with a radius 
twice that of the first, and, therefore, with 
a volume of space eight times as great. 

In that space there are only eight stars. 

But. there are one thousand millions 


of stars within the reach of our present 
telescopes. 

The milky way, the most distant of 
them, is 400,000,000 times the distance 
of the sun from us, and its light requires 
6,600 years to reach us. The light we 
see tonight started 4,700 years before 
Christ was born. The milky way may 
have been destroyed last night, but nobody 
on earth will know it for nearly 7,000 
years. 

The whole heavens blaze with the light 
of countless other stars invisible to the 
greatest telescope, though the light proves 
their existence. 

Besides the luminous stars, there are 
probably millions of dark stars, forever 
invisible to man. 

And, outside and beyond this visible 
universe of ours, there are others, reach¬ 
ing on, and on, and on—forever! 

LARGEST FLOWER KNOWN TO 
SCIENCE. 

The rafflesia is a strange plant. It 
grows in Sumatra and derives its name 
from Sir Stamford Raffles, governor of 
Sumatra at one time, and his friend Dr. 
Arnold, a naturalist. They were the first 
white men to discover the wonderful 
plant. It is said to be the largest and 
most magnificent flower in the world. It 
is composed of five round petals, each a 
foot across and of brick-red color, covered 
with numerous irregular yellowish-white 
swellings. The petals surround a cup 
nearly a foot wide, the margin of which 
bears the stamens. 

This cup is filled with a fleshy disk, the 
upper surface of which is everywhere 
covered with projections like miniature 
cow’s horns. 



772 


BOOK OF THE TIMES. 


LIST OF INVENTIONS THAT 
WOULD BRING VAST RICHES. 

The United States ship Albatross 
recently returned from a long cruise, dur¬ 
ing which she crossed every ocean in the 
world. The object of the cruise was 
deep sea soundings and other scientific 
purposes. In the course of these sound¬ 
ings the trawl brought up from a depth 
of about two miles an extraordinary col¬ 
lection of nodules of pure manganese. 
This metal, which is largely used in the 
arts and in medicine, is so hard that it 
will scratch glass. It is extremely valu¬ 
able, and on land is practically never 
found in a pure state. 

Further investigation proved that 
huge areas of the floor of the Pacific are 
strewn thick with immense deposits of 
this valuable substance. Invent a prac¬ 
ticable and economical method of re¬ 
covering it, and the individual who does 
so will at once become rich beyond the 
dreams of avarice. 

The difficulties in the way of such an 
invention are many, and the experi¬ 
ments would of necessity be costly. But 
it is not necessary for the ordinary man 
to go so far or spend so much in order to 
attain wealth and, incidentally, fame. 
For instance, there is nothing like 
leather for shoes; yet leather is expen¬ 
sive, and constantly becoming more so. 
The demand is always increasing. The 
population of the civilized world in¬ 
creases, and with it the demand for boots 
and shoes. Find a satisfactory substi¬ 
tute for leather and your fortune is 
made. 

It has been frequently asserted that 
the average inventor never makes any 


money. Constant repetition has made 
it almost a proverb. There are plenty 
of instances to prove its utter falsity. 
The copper shoe-tip made its inventor 
wealthy. The hook and eye, with a 
hump so that it cannot fall apart, is 
another example of a small idea which 
made its deviser a rich man. The shoe¬ 
lace fastener, the glove catch which 
superseded the button, the collar-but- 
toner—all these proved gold mines. 

The most crying need of today is a 
substitute for Para rubber. It is cer¬ 
tain to be discovered sooner or later. 
Celluloid and oxidized linseed oil are 
useful for some purposes for which rub¬ 
ber is used, but for cycle and automo¬ 
bile tires real rubber is still the only 
material with the necessary elasticity. 
The inventor of a substitute would soon 
become a multi-millionaire. 

Gutta-percha is rising in price every 
year. For golf balls it has never been 
superseded. Find a good golf ball sub¬ 
stitute and you will leap to millionaire- 
dom. For the purpose of insulating 
submarine cables gutta-percha is the one 
and only substance at present known. 
The market for a substitute is enormous. 

When asphalt was brought into use 
for the paving of streets people said: 
“Now the problem is solved for making 
a perfect road.” But it was not. As¬ 
phalt is expensive. It does not wear 
well. It gets greasy beyond words, and 
dangerous for man and beast. There 
are a host of objections to wood pave¬ 
ments, both on wearing and on sanitary 
grounds. In his “Anticipations” Mr. 
Wells, the British engineering expert, 
speaks of the perfect roadway of the 
future, tough, resilient, waterproof, 




NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT. 


773 


noiseless and clean. Here is another 
road to wealth. 

Gas makers paid the inventor of 
acetylene gas something like $500,000 
for his patents, under the impression 
that acetylene could be used as a sub¬ 
stitute for naphtha for enriching water 
gas. They wasted their money, for it 
has since been found impracticable 
to use it in this way. Water gas can 
be made for about 6 cents a thousand 
feet, but it gives no light until enriched 
by naphtha. This multiples its prime 
cost by six. If any one can discover 
a cheap means of enriching water gas, 
either by acetylene or other means, 
he has a vast fortune awaiting him. 

It costs ship owners thousands of dol¬ 
lars to clean the bottoms of their ves¬ 
sels. Steel vessels get foul in a very 
few months, and lose their speed. 
Dozens of anti-fouling paints are on 
the market, but all of any practical 
use are very costly. The genius who 
can invent a substance which will pre¬ 
vent steel submerged in water from 
rusting will be a benefactor to his 
country, and should incidentally ac¬ 
quire great wealth, if he patents his in¬ 
vention. 

Another ’ thing which marine en¬ 
gineers are clamoring for is something 
to prevent scale from forming in boil¬ 
ers. So far the problem has never 
been satisfactorily solved. Boilers have 
to be cleaned out by hand at intervals— 
a lengthy, tedious and expensive piece 
of work. 

Malleable glass was manufactured 
and used by the Romans nearly two 
thousand years ago. But the secret 
has been lost. It seems odd that no 


one in this age of mechanical progress 
has been able to re-discover the method 
of manufacturing a tough and un¬ 
breakable glass. Whoever succeeds in 
doing so and making the discovery 
economically useful will reap a great 
reward. 

Real photography in colors is still an 
open field and offers boundless oppor¬ 
tunities tor the inventor. In smaller 
matters, too, the list of wants unsup¬ 
plied is endless. Jewelers, for instance, 
are still quite without any safe method 
of fixing pearls on jewelry such as rings, 
where the gems are mounted without 
a surrounding setting. 

Among other great wants may be 
mentioned an automatic stoking ap¬ 
paratus, a perfect portable water filter, 
a method of making industrial use of 
liquid air, and an apparatus for har¬ 
nessing and turning to advantage the 
immense waste forces of the tide. 

HAND WORK VS. MACHINE 
WORK. 

Between the efficiency of hand labor 
and that of machine labor, the differ¬ 
ence is known generally to' be very 
great. But it was not until the United 
States Bureau of Labor investigated 
the matter that the real difference was 
learned. 

The bureau’s report shows clearly 
and precisely what the difference is in 
many branches of manufacture and 
agriculture. 

Here are some of the comparisons 
made: 

To produce 100 bushels of barley it 
took 211.94 hours of labor seventy 




BOOK OF THE TIMES. 


774 


years ago; today, with the aid of 
machinery, it takes 9.04 hours. 

To produce 160 bushels of oats it 
took 265 hours in 1830; by machinery 
it takes 28.39 hours. 

To drill six 2^2 inch holes \ l / 2 feet 
deep in hard blue rock took 180 hours 
when only hand work was used; by 
machinery only 8 hours and 12 min¬ 
utes are needed. 

It used to take 200 hours to load 100 
tons of iron ore on cars when men 
shoveled it by hand; machinery loads 
the same amount in less than three 
hours. 

When hand work alone was used, 
nearly four weeks—240 hours—were 
needed to transfer 200 tons of coal 
from canal boats to bins 400 feet away; 
now the work is done by machinery 
in just 20 hours. 

Seventy years ago it took 200 hours 
to make 50 12-inch pitchforks; now 
machinery makes them in 12.83 hours. 

During the “sixties” hand work 
turned out a buggy in 200.42 hours; 
machinery turns out a better carriage 
of the same style in 39.14 hours. 

Thirty-six thousand newspapers were 
printed and folded by hand in 216 
hours; by machinery they are turned 
out nowadays in 1.08 hours. 

It used to take 281 hours when only 
hand labor was used to print 1,000 
sheets of lithographic art work in six 
colors. Machinery does the work in 
5 hours and 40 minutes today. 

One hundred thousand ems of type 
were set by hand in 209.60 hours; ma¬ 
chines set the same amount in 45.45 
hours. 

Hand work will dress 160 square feet 


of granite in 243 hours; machinery 
will do it in 19 hours. 

In every other branch of work there 
is a similar saving of time by the use 
of machinery. 

DISCOVERY OF A SINGLE 
MEANS FOR PURIFYING 
LARGE BODIES OF 
WATER. 

The Department of Agriculture, not 
content with ransacking the world for 
animal and plant life which will add to 
the wealth of this country, not satisfied 
with the many wonderful accomplish¬ 
ments of its experts in biology and 
chemistry, such as the discovery of 
means for inoculating sterile soil and 
makmg it bring forth fruit in abund¬ 
ance, is now able to announce that it 
has about perfected a method for puri¬ 
fying water, a method as simple and 
inexpensive as it is valuable. 

Blue vitrol, or copper sulphate, min¬ 
gling with polluted water in the ratio of 
one part of the former to several million 
parts of the latter, is the remedy for the 
ills of a tainted water supply. 

One-half of the population of civilized 
countries depends on stored water for 
its supply. Not only is there always 
great danger of disease from contam¬ 
ination but even when serious danger is 
not present there is a disagreeable stench 
apt to develop in reservoir water, es¬ 
pecially in the summer months. 

At times the odor has been so bad 
that the authorities have dragged the 
bottom of the reservoir for a dead body, 
or have been obliged to shut off the sup¬ 
ply for months at a time. 



NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT. 


775 


The stench is caused by vegetable 
matter (algae), which enters quiescent 
water in some inexplicable way. These 
organisms multiply at an astonishing 
rate. If the water is absolutely quiet 
they are not offensive, but when the 
water becomes disturbed by pumping 
or being drawn off, tiny sacs of oil are 
broken and the foul smell begins. Many 
experiments have been made for ridding 
water supplies of these algas, but noth¬ 
ing effective was discovered until the 
Department of Agriculture hit upon 
the plan of using copper sulphate. 

By placing 200 pounds of blue vitriol 
in coarse sacks, suspending these sacks 
from, the stern of a rowboat, and rowing 
up and down the reservoir for several 
hours, the water supply of a city in 
Kentucky was completely cured of its 
disagreeable smell and taste in three 
days. The algas were so dense that a 
strong dose of the medicine was ad¬ 
ministered—-one part blue vitriol to 
4,000,000 parts of water. The cost of 
the medicine was $12.50. The town, 
which has been spending thousands of 
dollars each year ineffectually, has had 
no further trouble. 

While the'copper sulphate kills the 
algae and other germs resident in the 
water it imparts no poison that will 
endanger human life. There is more 
copper in a can of peas than in 330 gal¬ 
lons of water that have been sterilized 
by the strongest dose of copper sulphate 
necessary to destroy algae and disease 
germs. 

The announcement of the copper 
cure has brought to light many inci¬ 
dents from the past which tend to con¬ 
firm its validity. The unwitting use 


of blue vitriol during an epidemic of 
cholera in the city of Indianapolis 
stopped the further ravages of the 
plague. During the last visitation of 
cholera in Massachusetts the employes 
of the Revere Copper works were im¬ 
mune. It is claimed now that the old- 
time copper-bottom tea-kettle was a 
preventive of many of the intestinal 
diseases more common now than for¬ 
merly. 

It is believed that the use of copper 
sulphate at the origin of water supplies, 
whether reservoirs or rivers, will keep 
the water constantly pure. The in¬ 
fection of milk can be prevented by 
the use of copper. The method of ap¬ 
plying the new disinfectant to all the 
sources of typhoid and cholera germs 
has not been worked out, but it is safe 
to say that a successful remedy has been 
found. Hereafter the inhabitants of 
towns and cities can be protected from 
the dangers of an infected water supply 
by a simple and inexpensive applica¬ 
tion of copper sulphate. 

TELEPATHY AMONG INSECTS. 

Not only the unworthy sluggard 
might observe the ant and other in¬ 
sects and profit thereby. Science each 
day adds to the wonders which these 
little creatures are capable of and puts 
human creatures to shame. 

This time it is a sixth sense which 
a noted scientist has discovered many 
insects to be fortunate enough to 
possess. At least they are able .to 
communicate with one another at great 
distances. 

This professor had two ailanthus 
trees in his yard, and these suggested 



776 BOOK OF 


the idea to him of obtaining from 
Japan some eggs of the ailanthus silk¬ 
worm. He got a few, hatched the 
larvas and watched anxiously for the 
appearance of the first moths from 
the cocoons. He put one of the moths 
in a wicker cage and hung it on one 
of the ailanthus trees. This was a 
female moth. On the same evening 
he took a male moth to a cemetery, a 
mile and a half away, and let him loose, 
having previously marked him by 
tying a silken cord about his abdomen, 
so as to be able to identify him. The 
idea was to find out if the two moths 
would come together for the purpose 
of mating, these two being the only 
ones of their species within a distance 
of hundreds of miles. 

This power of locating each other 
had been previously observed in these 
insects. In the morning the two moths 
were found to be in the same cage, the 
female having been able to attract 
her mate from a distance of a mile 
and a half. 

Comparatively little is known about 
the ordinary senses of insects. Most 
of them see well, the eyes of many being 

DR. LYMAN ABBOTT’S 

THE FOLLOWING IS A SIGNED 
STATEMENT BY DR. LYMAN 
ABBOTT,HENRYWARD 
BEECHER’S SUCCESSOR IN 
HISTORIC PLYMOUTH 
CHURCH, IN REGARD TO THE 
PRESENT SCIENTIFIC CON¬ 
CEPTION OF THE BEING OF 
GOD: 

The conception of God as a Great, 
First Cause, who ages ago set in motion 


THE TIMES 


far more elaborate than those of the 
human being. The eyes of common 
house flies and dragon-flies are believed 
to be better fitted than the human eye 
for observing objects in motion,though 
these creatures are shortsighted. 

That insects have the sense of taste 
cannot be doubted when it is observed 
how nice they are in their selection 
of foods. That they have smell is a 
matter of common observation. Most 
insects are deaf to sounds which are 
heard by human beings. At the same 
time, there is no doubt that they make 
and hear sounds which are entirely 
out of range of hearing. 

Certain senses in insects appear to 
be beyond comprehension. The neu¬ 
ters among ants, known as the “ter¬ 
mites,” are blind, and yet they will 
reduce a beam of wood in their bur- 
rowings without once gnawing to the 
surface. An analogy is found among 
animals. A bat in a lighted room, 
though blinded as to sight, will fly in 
all directions with great swiftness and 
with infallible certainty of avoiding 
concussion or contact with any object. 
It seems to be able to feel at a distance. 

CONCEPTION OF GOD. 

certain secondary causes which con¬ 
trol the world, and with which he in¬ 
terferes from time to time as exigency 
may require, is giving place to a con¬ 
ception of One Great, Eternal, Under¬ 
lying Cause, as truly operative today 
as He. was in that first day when the 
morning stars sang together. Every 
day is a truly creative day. This is the 
conclusion to which science has been 






NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


777 


leading us, expressed in the words of 
Herbert Spencer, who, though not a 
great philosopher, is a great interpreter 
of the scientific thought of his time. 
“We are ever in the presence of an 
Infinite and Eternal' Energy from which 
all things proceed.” This Eternal En¬ 
ergy is not absent from the uni¬ 
verse. It is in the universe. We 
are ever in its presence. It is not 
many energies; it is One Energy. 
Science has dug a grave and buried in 
it, beyond possibility of resurrection, 
both polytheism and idolatry. This 
Energy is an intelligent Energy. The 
relations of the physical world are in¬ 
tellectual relations; science does not 
create them; it discovers them. Science 
thinks the thoughts of God after Him. 

While science has thus been leading 
us to see God in physical nature, 
philosophy has been leading us to see 
God in all the events of history. The 
doctrine of evolution, which is not the 
same as Darwinism, is the doctrine 
that the world’s progress is from a 
lower to a higher stage, from a simple 
to a more complex condition. Thus 
history is no longer the mere record 
of great events or the story of great 
lives. It is the philosophical unfolding 
of a great development, the end and 
issue of which is the Kingdom of God 
on the earth. Matthew Arnold was 
not an orthodox believer, but he has 
stated this fundamental doctrine in the 
sentence, “There is a Power not our¬ 
selves which makes for righteousness.” 
This Power is as manifest today in the 
world’s history as it was two thousand or 
more years ago in the history of Pales¬ 
tine. Any power making for righteous¬ 


ness must be a righteous Power, and 
righteousness can be predicated only 
of a personal God. God is present in 
human history; this is the testimony 
of philosophy, as God is present in 
physical phenomena. 

But has this God any relation to the 
individual, so that we can have 'some 
consciousness of Him and some con¬ 
nection with Him? Or is there an in¬ 
visible curtain between the soul and 
this Power in nature, this righteous 
Director of history? 

Literature is the interpreter of life, 
and to literature we turn for an an¬ 
swer to this question. And this an¬ 
swer is given to us by great poets, and by 
no one more clearly and beautifully 
than by Tennyson: 

“Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit 
with spirit can meet; 

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than 
hands or feet.’’ 

The notion of a humanized God, 
sitting in the center of the universe, 
ruling things, is gone; and in the place 
of this science has brought us back 
this: “We are ever in the presence of 
the Infinite”; and history has brought 
us back this: “There is a power not 
ourselves that makes for righteousness” ; 
and literature has brought us back 
this: “Spirit with spirit can meet; 

closer is He than breathing, nearer than 
hands or feet.” 

Am I then a Pantheist? Is this 
Pantheism? I suppose there are a 
great many persons who do feel that 
this changed conception of God is going 
to destroy the personality of the Divine. 
Is it? 

Go into a great cathedral, as St. 



778 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


Peter’s or St. Paul’s. As you look on 
these great pillars, on this great dome, 
this splendid architecture, you say: 
“I see here the fruit of the personality 
of Wren, or of Michael Angelo; and I 
am looking on something more than 
stone and mortar; I am looking on the 
work of a great mind and a great heart.” 
But now imagine for one moment that 
as you stood there you could see stone 
reared upon stone, and column upon 
column; you could see some invisible 
hand tracing the fretwork around the 
columns and carving the beautiful 
forms; as you looked, the cathedral 
grew into its splendid proportions and 
then some invisible force lifted the 
great dome and put it like the dome 
of Heaven on the columns underneath. 
Would you think the personality was 
gone because it was operative before 
your eyes? Am I to think that there 
was a personal God 6,000 years ago, or 
60,000 years ago, or 600,000 years ago, 
and that today, when I can go out and 
see Him painting the leaves and start¬ 
ing this fall the beginnings for next 
year’s spring—-see the love and* life of 
the ever-present God at work before 
my eyes, can I think that His person¬ 


ality is gone? No; a thousand times 
nearer, a thousand times closer. We 
are in the presence of the great Divine 
personality. What we mean by per¬ 
sonality is this: The Infinite and 
Eternal Energy, from which all things 
proceed, is an energy that thinks, that 
feels, that purposes and does, and is 
thinking and feeling and purposing and 
doing as a conscious life, of which ours 
is but a poor and broken reflection. 

The image which in my childhood I 
formed of God as a great king sitting 
upon a great white throne was really 
an idol, though it was not made in stone 
nor painted upon canvas. It is not 
to such an imagination we are to go for 
our realization of the personality of 
God. God has personified himself in 
human history. He has entered into 
one human life and filled that life so 
full of Himself that in Jesus Christ we 
see the image of the invisible God. 
Christianity is not an episode. The 
life of Christ is not an historical event 
completed in three short years. Jesus 
Christ is the revelation of an Eternal 
Fact, and the Eternal Fact is the Ever 
Present God. 


STRANGE ANIMAL FRIENDSHIPS. 


ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS RE¬ 
PORT ODD INSTANCES OF 
COMPANIONSHIP. 

Many and curious are the instances 
of animal friendships which one who 
has delved into the realms of natural 
history find for himself. 

For instance,- says a writer in the 
Philadelphia Public Ledger, the little 
pea-crab shares its food with the mussel 


in return for the protection of the lat¬ 
ter’s shell. It used to be supposed that 
the jellyfish seen along the mouth of the 
Thames river lived on the defenseless 
white shrimps sheltered underneath 
their long tentacles. On the contrary, 
the jellyfish floats along collecting food 
with its long arms, while the little 
shrimp remains in safe shelter and lives 
on the remnants. Taken from its 





NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


779 


protection, the shrimp dies almost im¬ 
mediately. 

The sea cucumbers also give shelter 
to a tiny salt-water fish, which, if not 
thus protected, would soon die. In a 
similar way the big Brazilian catfish 
saves another species from extinction 
by allowing them to live in his mouth. 

A curious lizard, known as the tua- 
tera, inhabits the Chickens islands, off 
New Zealand. It does not find much- 
food for itself, but the petrel, which also 
lives there, gets plenty of fish. The 
lizard, however, is able to burrow, which 
the petrel cannot, so the two creatures, 
therefore, entered into a partnership 
mutually agreeable and advantageous, 
whereby the petrel nests in the lizard’s 
burrow and the lizard obtains its food 
through the efforts of the petrel. 

The remora or sucking fish is a sea 
animal which is said to live most com¬ 
pletely by its wits. On top of its head 
it has developed a sucker, by means of 
which it attaches itself firmly to some 
big fish, such as a shark or whale, and 
is so towed in safety over the whole 
ocean, picking up lots of food on the 
way. 

In the National Zoo of Washington, 
D. C., two Rhesus monkeys formed a 
warm friendship for a Belgian hare, 
which was reciprocated, and it was in¬ 
teresting to see the three trying to eat 
out of the same dish. 

In the botanical gardens, Rio Janeiro, 
Brazil, a large manatee was kept sev¬ 
eral years ago in a pond on the grounds. 
It was an immense creature and it be¬ 
came so tame that it would often come 
up to the water’s edge and eat grass 
out of the hands of visitors. An at¬ 


tachment, curious it may seem, sprang 
up between this strange creature and a 
European swan, and it followed the 
latter about as though it had been its 
guardian, and one had only to look for 
the swan in order to see where the 
manatee was lazily floating about and 
feeding on the water plants at the bot¬ 
tom of the pond. When the swan 
sometimes left the pond the manatee 
was restless and discontented until the 
return of its companion. 

Mr. Aflalo, in describing some of the 
private menageries of England, writes 
of a number of such attachments in the 
big animal parks of Great Britain. At 
one place, Leonardslee, he saw a Sam- 
bur deer and a Welsh pony that chum¬ 
med together in great shape. At the 
present writing a great hippopotamus 
in the London zoo has taken an interest 
in an ordinary black house cat and 
Tabby not only enters and leaves the 
quarters of the big brute at will, but 
takes a ride on his back occasionally. 
In another private menagerie in Auck¬ 
land Mr. Aflalo saw two gray wolves 
whose friendship for a large European 
bear was so excessively playful that it 
would cause the latter to climb a tree, 
where it would lie down to sleep in the 
forks of some branches, leaving the 
wolves howling below for his companion¬ 
ship. 

Sir Henry Johnson, the discoverer of 
the okapi, in his recent volume of travels 
concerning Uganda, describes his ex¬ 
periments in the taming and domestica¬ 
tion of the wild animals of that country 
and gives an illustration of the fond¬ 
ness that grew up between a baby 
elephant and a young zebra. The 




780 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


little elephant would twine its trunk 
in loving embrace around the neck of 
the zebra and, although the latter was 
very fond of the elephant, there were 
times when it became tired and bored 

MEMORABLE SIEGE AND 

Nogi’s main army was landed at Pit- 
sewo and Port Adams, on both sides of 
the narrow neck north of the fortress, 
May 5, 1904, the railway to Liaoyang 
was cut and the move that was to seal 
. Port Arthur was begun. On May 21 
began the five days’ fight that cul¬ 
minated in the bloody battle of Nan- 
shan hill, May 26. The Russians were 
defeated, but at terrible cost, and Nogi, 
after occupying Dalny, planted a circle 
of Japanese guns around the outer ring 
of Port Arthur’s forts. On May 27 the 
siege was fairly begun; with Togo’s war¬ 
ships, lying like watch-dogs in the 
offing, the stronghold was cut off by 
land and sea. The opposing forces at 
this time were about 150,000 Japanese 
to about 50,000 Russians in the fortress. 

THE DISASTER TO STACKEL- 
BERG. 

Meantime Kuropatkin was urged to 
send re-enforcements south to the aid 
of the fortress, and Stackelberg, with a 
force of 30,000 men, started for the 
relief. He was intercepted by Gen. 
Oku, and the battle of Vafangow, one 
of the worst disasters the Russians had 
yet met, followed on June 14. That 
stopped the relief talk, and Stoessel and 
his heroes were left to their fate. 

During June and July a number of 
the outlying forts were captured by 


of its constant attentions and would 
bite the little fellow rather sharply with 
its great teeth, causing him to squeal 
under the pinch. 

FALL OF PORT ARTHUR. 

Nogi, whose bombardment, although 
incessant and terrific, seemed to have 
no effect on the main defenses. Green 
and Wolf hills were taken and Takushan 
followed. 

With the arrival of Marshal Oyama 
on the scene July 24, as commander-in- 
Chief of the mikado’s armies, a message 
was sent to Stoessel demanding the sur¬ 
render of the fortress or its capture by 
storm as the alternative. Stoessel re¬ 
fused and told the enemy to come on. 
In the assault that followed whole regi¬ 
ments of Japanese were wiped out. An 
attempt was made by the Russians to 
recapture Takushan, but it failed. Nogi’s 
men held the hill 845 feet high, and 
their guns there protected to some extent 
their sapping operations against the 
inner forts. 

DASH OF RUSSIAN FLEET. 

On Aug. 10 came the sensational dash 
of the Russian fleet, when the entire 
squadron tried to escape, but Togo’s 
fleet gave chase, and in a running battle 
Admiral Withoeft was killed on the 
flagship Czarevitch. That battleship, a 
wreck, put into Kinchou harbor; the 
Askold, badly battered, reached Shan¬ 
ghai; the Novik reached Saghalien is¬ 
land, where later it was sunk; several 
destroyers were lost in the fight, and the 
remainder of the ships, crippled and un- 



NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


781 


seaworthy, reached Port Arthur, where 
they lay at anchor until destroyed or 
disabled later by Japanese land guns. 

During August the fighting around 
the fortress was fast and furious. On 
the night of Aug. 24 the ranks of the 
Japanese were so decimated by the 
furious shrapnel fire of the Russians 
that they were forced to retire to the 
valley below the captured forts, and 
what might have been a successful 
general assault, with the capture of the 
fortified ridge east of Port Arthur, was 
converted by the Russian tactics into a 
repulse, redeemed in part by the wonder¬ 
ful fighting qualities of the Japanese in¬ 
fantry and their refusal to accept what 
seemed to be the inevitable. 

From Aug. 19 to 24 the Japanese 
casualties were 14,000. The center di¬ 
vision alone lost 6,000 and a single regi¬ 
ment lost 2,500. Only six officers and 
200 men of this regiment were left after 
the fight. The retention of the Banju- 
san forts gave the Japanese a foothold 
on the fortified ridge as a result of six 
days of general assault. But the experi¬ 
ment was so costly it was not repeated. 

DEPEND ON SAPPING AND 
DYNAMITE. 

From this time onward, while fierce 
fighting at close quarters, bayonet 
charges and the use of hand explosives 
were frequent, the Japanese depended 
chiefly on sapping and dynamite to re¬ 
duce the fortress. 

The closing days of October brought 
notable successes to the besiegers, but 
they also met with serious reverses. On 
Oct. 28 they gained the counterscarps 
of Rihlung and Sungshu forts and cap¬ 


tured “ P” fort between East Keekwan 
and Panlung mountains. They lost 
2,000 men in this operation and were 
forced to abandon the positions. 

November was marked by furious bat¬ 
tles, the Japanese gaining ground al¬ 
most inch by inch. On Nov. 5 and 6 
the Japanese were repulsed in an at¬ 
tempt to carry Etse fort by storm. On 
the 13th the Russians in turn were re¬ 
pulsed in a sortie. On Nov. 26 the 
Japanese began a general assault on 
Rihlung, Sungshu and Keekwan forts, 
but although they reached the inside 
they were driven out with fearful loss. 

SHIPS IN HARBOR DESTROYED. 

On Dec. 6 came the capture of 203 
Meter hill and its succeeding catastro¬ 
phes to the Russian fleet. The hill 
overlooked every foot of Port Arthur 
and the harbor. From its crest Japa¬ 
nese officers were enabled to direct the 
fire of the heavy guns beyond with such 
unerring aim that the Russian ships at 
anchor in the harbor were rendered use¬ 
less o-r sunk. 

The destruction of the fleet was follow¬ 
ed by the loss of the great forts north 
of the city, one by one. First Keekwan 
fort was captured. Then Rihlung fell 
on Dec. 28. On Saturday, Dec. 31, the 
Japanese captured the formidable strong¬ 
hold on Sungshu mountain, and on 
Sunday, Jan. 1, the forts on Panlung 
and Wantai mountains were captured. 

HEROISM AMOUNTED TO 
RECKLESSNESS. 

The siege and defense of Port Arthur 
were marked by bravery, gallantry and 
desperation unequaled in modem war- 




782 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


fare and hardly excelled in military 
history. Isolated instances of heroism 
that would have set the world ringing 
under less overwhelming circumstances 
were dwarfed by the generally mag¬ 
nificent conduct of both forces. By 
sea there were torpedo boat dashes of 
superb recklessness, and big ships 
plowed through mine fields with heroic 
disregard of life to give battle or in wild 
efforts to escape. By land the Japan¬ 
ese hurled themselves against the posi¬ 
tions declared to be impregnable. They 
faced and scaled rocky heights crowned 
with batteries and crowded with de¬ 
fenders, suffering losses that military 
experts say would have appalled any 
European army. 

STOESSEL’S STUBBORN DE¬ 
FENSE. 

In the doomed fortress its people 
lived under a devastating rain of shell 
and shrapnel. On scanty rations, be¬ 
sieged on every side, knowing that hope 
of succor or escape was vain, the gar¬ 
rison fought with a stubbornness that 
has evoked the admiration of the world. 
They met the untiring assaults of the 
Japanese with a grim valor that won 
even the praise of their foe, and the 
fighting was waged with a relentless¬ 
ness that often refused truces to bury 
the dead and collect the wounded. 
Over corpse-filled trenches men fought 
hand to hand with cold steel and 
clubbed guns, and at short range hurled 
at each other hand grenades filled with 
high explosives. The whole story is 
one of undaunted courage and sublime 
bravery on the part of both armies. 


STOESSEL’S OFFER TO SUR¬ 
RENDER. 

At 5 o’clock Sunday afternoon of 
January i, 1905, a Russian bearer of a 
flag of truce went into the first line of 
the Japanese position before Port Ar¬ 
thur and handed a letter to the mikado’s 
officers, containing an offer of surrender, 
as follows: 

“Judging by the general condition 
of the whole line of hostile positions- 
held by you I find further resistance at 
Port Arthur useless, and for the pur¬ 
pose of preventing needless sacrifice of 
lives I propose to hold negotiations 
with reference to capitulation. 

“Should you consent to the same 
you will please appoint commissioners 
for discussing the order and conditions 
regarding capitulation, and also ap¬ 
point a place for such commissioners 
to meet the same appointed by me. 

“I take this opportunity to convey 
to your excellency assurances of my 
respect. 

“Stoessel.” 

GENERAL NOGI’S ACCEPT¬ 
ANCE. 

The Japanese acceptance was re¬ 
turned in the following words: 

“I have the honor to reply to your 
proposal to hold negotiations regarding 
the conditions and order of capitulation. 
For this purpose I have appointed as 
commissioner Major-General Ijichi chief 
of staff of our army. He will be ac¬ 
companied by some staff officers and 
civil officials. They will meet your 
commissioners January 2, noon, at 
Shuishiying. The commissioners of 




NOTABLE FANCY AND FACT 


783 


both parties will be empowered to sign 
a convention for the capitulation with¬ 
out waiting for ratification, and cause 
the same to take immediate effect. 

Authorization for such plenary pow¬ 
ers shall be signed by the highest officer 
of both the negotiating parties, and the 
same shall be exchanged by the re¬ 
spective commissioners. I avail my¬ 
self of this opportunity to convey to 
your excellency assurances of my re- 


NOGI ENTERS CITADEL. 

Headquarters of the Japanese Third 
Army Before Port Arthur, January 
3, 3 a. m. —General Nogi and the Japan¬ 
ese army will march into Port Arthur 
this morning. 

It is stated that there are 18,000 sick 
and wounded soldiers in Port Arthur. 
The hospitals, wrecked by Japanese 
shells, are unfit for use. Medical and 
surgical supplies are exhausted. The 
condition of the wounded is declared to 
be deplorable in the extreme. Many 
of the wounds have been bound up with 
hemp, there being no cotton or linen 
for bandages. 

STOESSEL’S FINAL COUNCIL 
OF WAR. 

Russian officers who accompanied 
General Stoessel’s chief of staff to 
Shuishiying give affecting descriptions 
of the incidents which accompanied 
General Stoessel’s decision to surrender. 

Sunday afternoon General Stoessel 
realized that his ammunition practi¬ 
cally was exhausted and that unless 
he surrendered his men would be shot 
down without being able to resist. 


Soon after noon on Sunday General 
Stoessel summoned a council of the 
superior officers, in which Admiral 
Wiren represented the navy. Shells 
shrieked incessantly overhead and 
around when the worn-out officers 
gathered for the final conference in a 
dugout. 

RUSSIAN GENERALS WEEP. 

A Russian officer who claims to have 
seen the meeting says it was most 
pathetic. More than one voice was 
choked with sobs as it assented to the 
inevitable. An agreement was soon 
reached. It was to be “terms of honor 
or we die fighting.” 

Thereupon the remnant of the gar¬ 
rison was ordered to concentrate where 
all the available stores had been col¬ 
lected, prepared to fight to the last un¬ 
less General Nogi proved generous. 

Admiral Wiren ordered measures 
taken to destroy his ships. Some of 
the forts were blown up and all possi¬ 
ble was done while the messenger with 
the offer of surrender was on his way 
to General Nogi’s headquarters. 

SHIPS IN HARBOR DESTROYED. 

In accordance with Admiral Wiren’s 
orders the disabled battleship Sevas¬ 
topol outside the harbor, was blown 
up, and the other large Russian ships 
inside the harbor were destroyed as 
thoroughly as possible. The half- 
sunken ships Retvizan, Poltava and 
Pallada caught fire as the other ships 
were blown up inside of and near, the 
entrance to the harbor. 






784 


BOOK OF THE TIMES 


During the siege it is estimated that 
the Japanese lost more men than the 
total number of the fortress defenders. 

RUSSIAN’S LOSS IN PORT 
ARTHUR. 

Russia had invested in Port Arthur 
fortifications, according to their own 


estimates, not less than three hundred 
millions of dollars. 

It is understood that they had about 
fifty thousand men in the Forts at the 
beginning of the siege. The loss of 
men is estimated to be above thirty 
thousand for Russia and fifty thousand 
for Japan. 


MASSACRE AND RIOTS IN ST. PETERSBURG. 


The working classes attempted to 
present a petition to the Czar on Sunday 
January, 22, 1905, and a hundred 

thousand or more assembled about 
the Winter Palace on the Neva. Cos¬ 
sack regiments were sent to disperse 
them, and in doing so, killed about two 
thousand and wounded five thousand 
more. 

In writing of the cause of the great 
strike that brought on these revolu¬ 
tionary movements a noted Russian 
writer says: 

“The simple truth is the Russian 
peasant, 100,000,000 of him, is, under 
present conditions, slowly starving to 
death. His average earnings in the 
central provinces are 17 and 18 copecks 
(8 to 9 cents) per day throughout the 
year; during the busiest harvest time 
they rise to an average of 27 to 36 
copecks (13 to 16 cents a day); during 
the whole winter he and his family 
earn nothing. His diet consists of 
meal, flour and grits, cabbage and 


potatoes; no meat, excepting three 
times a year. His diet is insufficient, 
and less than in any civilized country. 
The hovel he lives in averages four 
yards long and not more than two yards 
high, harboring the whole family and 
whatever cattle he possesses. These 
data are taken from official sources. 

“Is it a wonder that the Russian 
peasant has morally and physically 
degenerated ? That the women are 
immoral, dreading maternity, and given 
to a frightful extent to infanticide? 
That the men are nomads, leaving wives 
and children for months, often years, 
trying to earn something in town or in 
far-away districts? That the recruit¬ 
ing in these central provinces shows 
progressively physical unfitness for the 
army? That the health of the women 
is bad, and that the rate of increase in 
the population in this ‘black-earth 
belt’ had dropped to 0.26, against 1.5 
in the whole empire? Such despotism 
means relief through revolution.” 






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